Another Cyberattack Ripples Through Ukraine and Russia

Ukraine and Russia were slammed with its second major cyberattack since June on Tuesday (October 24), resulting in flight delays at the Odessa airport in Ukraine and shutting down various Russian media outlets.
Reuters reported on Tuesday the most recent malware attack, called BadRabbit, is one of the biggest to hit since June’s ExPetr–also known as NotPetya–attack. Much like other ransomware attacks, BadRabbit encrypted itself onto computer software, and demanded a bitcoin ransom in the amount of $0.05–or $282–to restore the network. However, paying the ransom fee didn’t guarantee the attacked systems would be revived.
So far, the attack has shut down two Russian news outlets, including Fontaka and Interfax. In Ukraine, transportation services including the Kiev Metro, the Odessa airport and the Ministry of Infrastructure were impacted by the attack.

Fontaka posted to its Facebook page  early on Tuesday that “the site may be unavailable for several hours.”

Meanwhile Interfax took to Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) to relay the news.
“Due to a hacker attack, our servers are not working. Technical services are using all measures to restore the system,” the tweet read, although the outlet expects to be back online by the end of Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Odessa International Airport also took to Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) on Tuesday to announce that its systems had been hacked and that flights had been delayed because workers had to process passenger information manually.
Russian cybersecurity lab Kaspersky stated on its blog that its team of experts are “investigating the attack” and will report the findings as they occur.
“According to our data, most of the victims of these attacks are located in Russia,” the post read, highlighting that in addition to the attacks in Ukraine, Turkey and Germany also had systems compromised. “Based on our investigation, this is a targeted attack against corporate networks, using methods similar to those used in the ExPetr attack. However, we cannot confirm it is related to ExPetr.”
While the Bad Rabbit ransomware attack pales in comparison to May’s WannaCry attack and the ExPetr attack in June, the threat of cyberattacks is still cause for concern–no matter the size.
Case in point, Cybersecurity Ventures reports that cyberattacks are “the greatest threat to every company in the world,” and previously projected that cybercrimes will cost at least $6 trillion per by by 2021–up from $3 trillion in 2015.
As noted in the report, the Equifax breach, WannaCry and ExPetr/Notpetya are larger in scale than previous attacks, signalling that “they are a sign of the times.” As such, Cybersecurity Ventures states that a business will be victimized by a ransomware attack every 14 seconds by 2019.
In order to prevent cyberattacks, Nick Dinsmoor, vice president strategy and marketing at Virtual Armour (CNSX:VAI), previously told the Investing News Network (INN) that it’s important to always have a back up of your data and to have them stored in different ways.
“Second, make sure the software on all computers is consistently updated,” he added.
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Securities Disclosure: I,Jocelyn Aspa, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
Editorial Disclosure: Virtual Armour is a client of the Investing News Network. This article is not paid for content.