White House: Russian Military Behind NotPetya Attacks

The Trump administration today confirmed what UK officials already said today officially: that Russia's military was behind the crippling NotPetya ransomware campaign aimed at destabilizing Ukraine and that spread to other nations.

In a statement from the White House Press Secretary's office, the administration said:

"In June 2017, the Russian military launched the most destructive and costly cyber-attack in history.

The attack, dubbed 'NotPetya,' quickly spread worldwide, causing billions of dollars in damage across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It was part of the Kremlin's ongoing effort to destabilize Ukraine and demonstrates ever more clearly Russia's involvement in the ongoing conflict. This was also a reckless and indiscriminate cyber-attack that will be met with international consequences."

NotPetya posed as a ransomware attack, but instead was aimed at destroying data: it modified the Master Boot Record of the infected machine such that the data couldn't be recovered. Mainly Ukrainian businesses and critical infrastructure providers were hit, but also infected were organizations in Russia, Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands, India, Italy, the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and the US.

Among those hit were Russia's top oil company Rosneft, Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk, Russian metals manufacturer Evraz, Ukraine's Boryspyl Airport, US pharmaceutical company Merck, and radiation detection systems at Chernobyl.

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