The CIA has attributed to Russian military hackers a cyberattack that crippled computers in Ukraine last year, an effort to disrupt that country's financial system amid its ongoing war with separatists loyal to the Kremlin, according to The Washington Post.
Hackers tried to access confidential data in powerful but stealthy phishing attacks launched in parallel with an eyeball-grabbing ransomware strike called BadRabbit last week, the head of the Ukrainian state cyber police said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Hackers behind the NotPetya virus that hit Ukraine and spread around the world in June probably also designed malware called BadRabbit used in a more recent strike, a Ukrainian presidency official said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The Juscutum Attorneys Association, a Ukrainian law firm, is rallying NotPetya victims to join a collective lawsuit against Intellect-Service LLC, the company behind the M.E.Doc accounting software, the point of origin of the NotPetya ransomware outbreak, according to Bleeping Computer, a computer help site, which also publishes news and reviews for PC users.
When the latest major cyberattack hit Ukraine, it brought a screeching halt to many businesses across the country. Even now, almost a month after the so-called NotPetya strike, some companies inside and outside the nation are still facing disruption, the BBC reports.
A major, global cyber attack could trigger an average of $53 billion of economic losses, a figure on par with a catastrophic natural disaster such as U.S. Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Lloyd's of London said in a report on Monday, according to Reuters.