Cadbury struck by latest global cyber attack
AUCKLAND/MOSCOW/KIEV/ WASHINGTON: A major global cyber attack sweeping across the world has hit at least two companies in New Zealand.
Cadbury NZ and DLA Piper’s have both confirmed they were affected by the Petya malware which was locking computer data.
In a statement Mondelez, Cadbury’s owner, said ‘‘this outage had impacted some of [our] systems, but has not affected production in Dunedin.’’
‘‘At this time, we do not know when our systems will be restored but we appreciate everyone’s patience, understand and partnership during this process,’’ the company said.
DLA Piper’s New Zealand firm cannot receive external emails but is still able to send emails.
A New Zealand cyber security specialist said ‘‘Petya’’ malware was neither an attack nor ransomware.
Tom Moore from Wellingtonbased Aura Information Security said, unlike Wannacry, Petya would not yield financial gains for the originators.
‘‘The email address they set up for bitcoin funds doesn’t work,’’ Moore said. ‘‘They’re not getting any money.’’
The virus interrupted computers at Russia’s biggest oil company, Ukrainian banks and multinational firms.
The rapidly spreading cyber extortion campaign, which began on Tuesday, underscored growing concerns that businesses have failed to secure their networks from increasingly aggressive hackers, who have shown they are capable of shutting down critical infrastructure and crip pling corporate and government networks.
Businesses in the AsiaPacific region reported some disruptions yesterday with the operations of several European companies hit, including India’s largest container port, although the impact on companies and governments across the wider region appeared to be limited.
The ransomware virus includes code known as ‘‘Eternal Blue’’, which cyber security experts widely believe was stolen from the US National Security Agency and was also used in last month’s ransomware attack, named ‘‘WannaCry’’.
Microsoft said the virus could spread through a flaw that was patched in a security update in March.
A spokesman for the company said Microsoft antivirus software detects and removes it.
Operations at one of the three terminals of Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) in Mumbai, India’s largest container port, were disrupted.
The impacted terminal is operated by Danish shipping giant AP MollerMaersk, which also reported disruptions in Los Angeles.
Indiabased employees at Beiersdorf, makers of Nivea skin care products, and Reckitt Benckiser, which owns Enfamil and Lysol, told Reuters the ransomware attack had affected some of their systems.
Globally, Russia and Ukraine were most affected by the thousands of attacks, with other victims spread across countries including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United States. The total number of attacks was unknown. — Reuters/NZME