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The Petya Ransomware Is Starting To Look Like a Cyberattack in Disguise (theverge.com)
Further research and investigation into Petya ransomware -- which has affected computers in over 60 countries -- suggest three interesting things: 1. Ukraine was the epicentre of the attack. According to Kaspersky, 60 percent of all machines infected were located within Ukraine. 2. The attackers behind the attack have made little money -- around $10,000. Which leads to speculation that perhaps money wasn't a motive at all. 3. Petya was either "incredibly buggy, or irreversibly destructive on purpose." An anonymous reader shares a report: Because the virus has proven unusually destructive in Ukraine, a number of researchers have come to suspect more sinister motives at work. Peeling apart the program's decryption failure in a post today, Comae's Matthieu Suiche concluded a nation state attack was the only plausible explanation. "Pretending to be a ransomware while being in fact a nation state attack," Suiche wrote, "is in our opinion a very subtle way from the attacker to control the narrative of the attack." Another prominent infosec figure put it more bluntly: "There's no fucking way this was criminals." There's already mounting evidence that Petya's focus on Ukraine was deliberate. The Petya virus is very good at moving within networks, but initial attacks were limited to just a few specific infections, all of which seem to have been targeted at Ukraine. The highest-profile one was a Ukrainian accounting program called MeDoc, which sent out a suspicious software update Tuesday morning that many researchers blame for the initial Petya infections. Attackers also planted malware on the homepage of a prominent Ukraine-based news outlet, according to one researcher at Kaspersky. Ars Technica has more.
So the Russians did it?
Information wants to be free?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I suspect that Russia's growing use of "cyber war" tactics against its enemies will eventually backfire in the political arena. They really can't expect that governments, both friend and foe, will not start to lean on them in a more forceful way. I think and all-out âoecyber warâ between a growing number of countries would be very very very bad for everyone.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It doesn't always "have to be Putin" but there is a reason why it frequently is Russia.
1) They have the resources. No country has a better human resource for hacking than Russia. They have a large highly trained tech-savvy population. They've put more effort into teaching people to be computer literate than almost anywhere else. They also have a wild-west type law enforcement that overlooks a lot of hacking and allows people to hone their skills that way.
2) They have a motive. Russia is semi-openly hostile to most countries that lay to it's West. They have a policy of constantly testing our defenses. They frequently fly planes into other countries airspace to see how quickly they will react, the cyber warfare is more of the same testing. They're seeing how we will react.
3) They have a leader who doesn't give a damn what other countries think of them. Putin wants what is best for Russia and doesn't care if that makes people in other countries not like him. He doesn't want to be known as clean or honourable- he just wants to restore the empire. Furthermore, his background is in espionage. Being sneaky is in his blood.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Are you really so arrogant that you think that the Americans who work for the NSA are the only ones in the world who know how to write malicious code?
Not at all. But everything I've read states that it was derived from the code that the Shadow Brokers released.
According to BleepingComputer.com, you can vaccinate against NotPetya by creating and adding 3 write-protected files to your C:\Windows folder: perfc, perfc.dat, and perfc.dll.
Content doesn't matter but "Read-only" status does.
licet differant, aequabitur
Yeah, what part of him de facto annexing parts of half a dozen neighboring countries and de jure annexing part of Ukraine would give one the impression that he wants to restore the empire? What part of Putin lamenting the fall of the Soviet Union would give one that impression?
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
How was the attack poor? Sure, they didn't make any money, but they fucked up a lot of Ukraine businesses. Mission accomplished, I'd say.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Because Russia would never try to screw around with the computers of a country that it has a) effectively invaded and b) already annexed a piece of its territory. Oh no, to suggest that is somehow to betray "political motivation."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Care to name half a dozen neighboring countries parts of which Putin annexed de facto or otherwise?
That's one way of looking at it; this is another:
From Krebs on Security
For the non-native English speakers here (and I know there are a lot of you), fecal theater is a euphemism for shit show.
Cyberattack? Not really. People have already forgotten that the ISP responsible for receiving emails of people desiring to pay the ransom was BLOCKED by the ISP so nobody could pay. This accounts in large part for why the hackers (wherever and whoever they are) didn't collect much money. Anyway, what with all the cyber attacks and ransomware going around I'm still amazed that after all this time, those machines infected STILL HAVE NOT upgraded their OS. It sure pays to do so. But what do I know---I'm not a windows user.
You are really stupid or really shilly. So let's pretend the russian never entered eastern Ukraine and shot down a commercial airline and bragged about it. They still invaded Crimea and even annexed it.
Even Moldova would be wrong - that particular civil war happened when Putin was just an aide for a local politician.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Chechnya was not a separate country from Russia even after the Soviet Union broke up. It was and is within the Russian borders.
3) They have a leader who doesn't give a damn what other countries think of them. Putin wants what is best for Russia and doesn't care if that makes people in other countries not like him. He doesn't want to be known as clean or honourable- he just wants to restore the empire.
Fun exercise:
Replace Putin with Trump and Russia with USA.
For point 3, I in no way disagree with you. There is a reason those two men admire each other.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Yes, we already know that you hate Russia. You have been writing about that "for fucking years, absolutely years".
And yes, Putin was absolutely right that the breakup of the USSR was a disaster - it sent millions of people into poverty, lowered their average life expectation by a decade, revoked many of their rights and freedoms and directly killed tens of thousands in the ensuing ethnic conflicts.
A slower and more peaceful transformation would have been far more preferable for everyone and all of this is just as true for Yugoslavia.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Let me educate you :) The USSR consisted of 15 republic states. According to the constitution of the USSR each republic state had a right to secede from the USSR. These republic states were: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghistan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
As you can see there were no Chechnya among them. Chechnya was a part of the Russian republic state. In the end of 1991, all 15 republic states seceded from the USSR and became 15 independent states. The USSR ceased to exist. And because Chechnya was part of the Russian republic state within the USSR, it became a part of the current Russian Federation.