Cyber attack hits Asia: chocolate factory and container port operators among victims
The latest ransomware virus, named ‘Petya’, has crippled computers running Microsoft Windows by encrypting hard drives and overwriting files, then demanding US$300 in bitcoin to restore access
The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, the facility near Mumbai which is operated by A.P. Moller-Maersk and is India’s largest container operation, was affected, according to a report by the Press Trust of India.
One of the three terminals is now at a standstill because the computer systems were disabled. The attack is being carried out by the Petya virus, with users being told to pay US$300 in cryptocurrency per infected computer to unlock their systems.
The spread of the attack across the globe and into Asia underscores how ransomware is becoming a routine risk of doing business. While banks and retailers have strengthened their defences against certain types of attacks, such as those aimed at stealing credit card data, many other enterprises are still catching up in guarding against ransomware.
About 2,000 users had been attacked as of midday Tuesday in North America, according to Kaspersky Lab analysts, with organisations in Russia and the Ukraine the most affected.
Watch: new cyberattack causes mass disruption globally