SINGAPORE: The international cyberattack, currently spreading from Russia and Ukraine to Europe and the US, is "more dangerous and intrusive" than WannaCry - the ransomware that hobbled institutions such as FedEx and Britain's National Health Service, the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT) said on Wednesday.
The Petya ransomware disrupted computers at Russia's biggest oil company Rosneft, Ukrainian banks, as well as global firms such as shipping company Maersk and advertising agency WPP. The New York Times reported that in the US, DLA Piper, a multinational law firm, as well as a Pennsylvania healthcare provider Heritage Valley Health Systems, were hit by the virus.
In an advisory posted on its website on Wednesday, SingCERT said it was alerted on Tuesday to the global spread of Petya, which is inspired by WannaCry. It is more dangerous and intrusive as it is programmed to encrypt the Master File Tree tables for NTFS partitions and overrides the Master Boot Record (MBR) with a custom bootloader to display a ransom note and prevents victims from booting up, it said.
In other words, Petya encrypts one's entire hard-disk on the computer, rather than individual files and applications, which was how WannaCry operated.
The Cyber Security Agency of Singapore and Government Technology Agency (GovTech) said in a separate joint statement on Wednesday saying that SingCERT has not received any reports on the ransomware infection here.
None of Singapore's 11 critical information infrastructure (CII) sectors were affected; nor were the Government systems, both said.
Read more at Petya ransomware 'more dangerous & intrusive' than WannaCry
The Petya ransomware disrupted computers at Russia's biggest oil company Rosneft, Ukrainian banks, as well as global firms such as shipping company Maersk and advertising agency WPP. The New York Times reported that in the US, DLA Piper, a multinational law firm, as well as a Pennsylvania healthcare provider Heritage Valley Health Systems, were hit by the virus.
In an advisory posted on its website on Wednesday, SingCERT said it was alerted on Tuesday to the global spread of Petya, which is inspired by WannaCry. It is more dangerous and intrusive as it is programmed to encrypt the Master File Tree tables for NTFS partitions and overrides the Master Boot Record (MBR) with a custom bootloader to display a ransom note and prevents victims from booting up, it said.
In other words, Petya encrypts one's entire hard-disk on the computer, rather than individual files and applications, which was how WannaCry operated.
The Cyber Security Agency of Singapore and Government Technology Agency (GovTech) said in a separate joint statement on Wednesday saying that SingCERT has not received any reports on the ransomware infection here.
None of Singapore's 11 critical information infrastructure (CII) sectors were affected; nor were the Government systems, both said.
Read more at Petya ransomware 'more dangerous & intrusive' than WannaCry
