Ukrainian police seize servers at software company linked to worldwide cyberattack

Ukraine’s national cybercrime unit seized servers belonging to a small company at the centre of a global outbreak of malicious software after “new activity” was detected there, the service said in a statement early Wednesday.

The announcement raised the possibility that the hackers behind last week’s wide-ranging cyberattack were still seeking to sow chaos.

Tax software firm M.E. Doc was raided to “immediately stop the uncontrolled proliferation” of malware. In a series of messages, Cyberpolice spokeswoman Yulia Kvitko suggested that M.E. Doc had sent or was preparing to send a new update and added that swift action had prevented any further damage.

“Our experts stopped (it) on time,” she said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how or why hackers might still have access to M.E. Doc’s servers. The company has been the focus of intense attention from authorities and cybersecurity researchers since it was identified as the patient zero of the outbreak, which crippled computers at several multinational firms and knocked out cash machines, gas stations and bank branches in Ukraine.