Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Companies, governments assess damage from malware
PARIS — Companies and governments around the world on Wednesday counted the cost of a software epidemic that has disrupted ports, hospitals and banks. Ukraine, which was hardest hit and where the attack likely originated, said it had secured critical state assets — though everyday life remained af- fected, with cash machines out of order and airport displays operated manually.
As the impact of the cyberattack that erupted Tuesday was still being measured at offices, loading docks and boardrooms, the Ukrainian Cabinet said that “all strategic assets, including those involved in protecting state security, are working normally.”
But that still left a large number of non-strategic assets — including dozens of banks and other institutions — fighting to get back online. Cash machines in Kiev seen by an Associated Press photographer were still out of order Wednesday, and Ukrainian news reports said that flight information at the city’s Boryspil airport was being provided in manual mode.
A local cybersecurity expert discounted the Ukrainian government’s assurances.
“Obviously they don’t control the situation,” Victor Zhora of Infosafe in Kiev told the AP.
Others outside Ukraine were struggling, too. Logistics firm FedEx says deliveries by its TNT Express subsidiary have been “slowed” by the cyberattack, which had “significantly affected” its systems.
At India’s largest container port, one of the terminals was idled by the malicious software. M.K. Sirkar, a manager at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust in Mumbai, said that no containers could be loaded or unloaded Wednesday at the terminal operated by Danish shipping giant A.P. MollerMaersk.
In a statement, MollerMaersk acknowledged that its APM Terminals had been “impacted in a number of ports” and that an undisclosed number of systems were shut down “to contain the issue.” The company declined to provide further detail or make an official available for an interview.
At the very least, cybersecurity firms say thousands of computers worldwide have been struck by the malware, which goes by a variety of names.
In Pennsylvania, lab and diagnostic services were closed at the satellite offices of the Heritage Valley Health System. In Tasmania, an Australian official said a Cadbury chocolate factory had stopped production after computers there crashed. Other organizations affected include U.S. drugmaker Merck, food and drinks company Mondelez International, global law firm DLA Piper, and Londonbased advertising group WPP.
But most of the damage remains hidden away in offices and industrial parks.
As IT security workers turned their eye toward cleaning up the mess, others wondered at the attackers’ motives. Ransomware — which scrambles a computer’s data until a payment is made — has grown explosively over the past couple of years, powered in part by the growing popularity of digital currencies such as bitcoin. But some experts believed that this latest ransomware outbreak was aimed at sending a message to Ukraine and its allies.
That hunch was buttressed by the way the malware appears to have been seeded using a rogue update to a piece of Ukrainian accounting software — suggesting an attacker focused on Ukrainian targets.
And it comes on the anniversary of the assassination of a senior Ukrainian military intelligence officer and a day before a national holiday celebrating a new constitution signed after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
“The threat we’re talking about looks like it was specially developed for Ukraine because that was the place it created most of the damage,” said Bogdan Botezatu, of Romanian security firm Bitdefender, calling it a case of “national sabotage.”
Matthieu Suiche, the founder of Dubai-based Comae Technologies, wrote that the code pointed not to criminals, but “in fact a nation state attack.”