Ransomware attack hits Europe, India

Zurich: Ransomware known as Petya seems to have re-emerged to affect computer systems across Europe, causing issues primarily in Ukraine, Russia, England and India, a Swiss government information technology agency said on Tuesday.

Several multinational companies said Tuesday they were targeted in an international cyberattack which started in Russia and Ukraine before spreading to western Europe.

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Danish sea transport company Maersk, British advertising giant WPP and the French industrial group Saint-Gobain all said they came under attack and put protection protocols in place to avoid data loss.

“There have been indications of late that Petya is in circulation again, exploiting the SMB (Server Message Block) vulnerability,” the Swiss Reporting and Analysis Centre for Information Assurance (MELANI) said in an e-mail.

It said it had no information that Swiss companies had been impacted, but said it was following the situation. The Petya virus was blamed for disrupting systems in 2016.

Russia’s top oil producer Rosneft said a large-scale cyber attack hit its servers on Tuesday, with computer systems at some banks and the main airport in neighbouring Ukraine also disrupted.