Companies struggle to recover after cyberattacks

Incident is second in recent months to use NSA tools

MOSCOW — Companies worldwide struggled to recover Wednesday after wave of powerful cyberattacks crippled computer systems in Europe, Asia and the United States with a virus similar to the global ransomware assault in May that infected computers.

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis Team in Russia said Wednesday that a regional Ukrainian website had been hacked and used to distribute the ransomware to visitors.

Kaspersky estimated that there had been more than 2,000 attacks, linked to a version of malware called Petya — 60 percent of them in Ukraine and 30 percent in Russia, including the country’s largest oil company.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “no serious problems” had occurred as a result of the cyberattacks. Speaking on a conference call Wednesday, Peskov also said he had no accurate information on the origin of the attacks.

But the damage was worst in Ukraine, and some Ukranian officials had initially expressed suspicions that the attacks originated in Russia. The hacks targeted government ministries, banks, utilities and other important infrastructure and companies nationwide, demanding ransoms from government employees in the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

The virus even downed systems at the site of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant, forcing scientists to monitor radiation levels manually.

On Wednesday, Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk said it was working to restore its operations a day after being hit by the cyberattack.

“We have contained the issue and are working on a technical recovery plan with key IT partners and global cyber security agencies,” Maersk, which handles one in every seven containers shipped world wide, said in a stock exchange announcement.

The Copenhagen-based group said its APM Terminals were affected “in a number of ports,” but said that its vessels with Maersk Line were “maneuverable, able to communicate and crews are safe.”

Cyberattacks also spread as far as India and the United States, where the pharmaceutical giant Merck reported on Twitter that “our company’s computer network was compromised today as part of global hack.” The New Jersey-based company said it was investigating the attack.

Logistics firm FedEx said Wednesday that deliveries by its TNT Express subsidiary had been “slowed” by the cyberattack, which had “significantly affected” its systems.

France’s biggest bank, BNP Paribas, said on Wednesday said that its real estate unit, which provides services to corporations around Europe, had been hit in the attack.

Cyber researchers say that the virus used an “exploit” developed by the National Security Agency that was later leaked onto the Internet by hackers. It is the second massive attack in the past two months to use powerful U.S. exploits in attacks against the IT infrastructure that supports national governments and corporations.

The onslaught of ransomware attacks may be the “new normal,” said Mark Graff, the chief executive of Tellagraff, a cybersecurity company.

“The emergence of Petya and WannaCry really points out the need for a response plan and a policy on what companies are going to do about ransomware,” he said. WannaCry was the ransomware used in the May attack. “You won’t want to make that decision at a time of panic, in a cloud of emotion.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.