On October 24, 2017, Ukraine, Russia, Japan, and Bulgaria were hit by a wave of cyber attacks. Reuters reported that Ukraine’s Odessa airport and metro system in Kiev were targeted by a malware called “BadRabbit” and prompted state-run Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) to ask transport networks to be on alert. However, country’s banking services remained unaffected.
Ukraine government, that suffered a major cyber attack early this year, was reportedly warned of this strike on October 13.
In a statement, CERT-Ukraine said “We ask the owners of telecommunication systems, other information resources, transport infrastructure first of all, as well as ordinary internet users, to comply with stricter cyber security requirements.”
Kiev metro system reported that its payment system was attacked while Odessa airport said it had to delay some flights, as it beefed up its security arrangements.
“We report that the IT system of Odessa international airport has been hit by a hacker attack. All services of the airport are working in a stricter mode,” the airport said in a statement.
Ukraine suspects that its neighbor Russia is behind these cyber attacks and is planning to draft a national strategy to overcome such attacks and to keep major institutions and companies safe.
Russia’s one of the largest news agency, Interfax was affected, as its services were unavailable to subscribers. Two more media outlets of Russia were targeted but their names were not disclosed.
The country’s cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab said it was investigating to see whether ‘BadRabbit’ was related to NotPetya virus, that previously targeted Ukrainian government agencies.
According to cyber firm ESET, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey and Japan were targeted in the latest cyber attack. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a warning on ‘BadRabbit’ malware advising citizens to report any infections to the Federal Bureau of Investigation through the government’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
