SBU stopped proliferation of malware from Russia

The Security Service of Ukraine informs they have stopped proliferation of malware from the special services of Russia. Radio Liberty reports this with reference to the SBU's press service.

According to information from SBU, in the period from May 25 to June 6, SBU, in cooperation with its foreign partners, put an end to using “the Ukrainian network infrastructure for intentional dissemination of malware by Russian special services targeting informational networks of critical infrastructure in Ukraine and in other countries of the world”.

“Using the server equipment, including Ukrainian hosting, targeted cybernetic attacks were conducted (so-called АРТ-attacks – Advanced Persistent Threat) and critical infrastructure targets were infested with special types of malware”, the special service informed.

SBU representatives also added that in the searches the law enforcement officers took away the server equipment that was used in the system of cyberattacks by Russian special services.

The Russians have not commented these statements yet.

For the context, on June 27 a wide-scale hacker attack was reported against several institutions. Secretary of the National Security Council and Defense of Ukraine Oleksander  Turchynov said that Russia can be a party involved in the attack. At that, the Security Council considers that the massive cyber-attack did not cause great damage to the targeted entities.

The cyber-attack also reportedly reached other countries. A considerable damage was caused in Italy, countries of Central Europe and Israel.

The virus Petya.А encrypts the data on computers and demands ransom. The specialists advise not to pay the ransom - even if the owners of the affected computer do pay, they do not get any keys.

The ransomware virus WannaCry was performing similar actions – in May of 2017, it affected 300 thousand computers in 150 countries. According to the European Police data, this time we deal with the modified virus Petya, which was first observed in 2016, and which is similar to WannaCry, but is more complicated. The exact number of users that suffered damages from the virus remains unknown.