Ukraine's ransomware attack was a ruse to hide culprit's identity, researchers say

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

Ukraine’s ransomware attack was a ruse to hide culprit’s identity, researchers say - The Washington Post

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Ukraine’s ransomware attack was a ruse to hide culprit’s identity, researchers say

By Ellen Nakashima June 29 at 7:02 PM

The cyber attack that crippled computer systems in Ukraine and other countries this week employed a ruse — the appearance of being ransomware — that seems designed to deflect attention from the attacker’s true identity, security researchers said. ... And many companies initially fell for it.

The first reports out of cybersecurity firms on Monday, when news of the attack hit, was that a new variant of WannaCry, a virus that encrypted data and demanded a ransom to restore it, was on the loose. ... In fact, a number of researchers said this week, the malware — which researchers are calling NotPetya — does not encrypt data, but wipes its victims’ computers. If the data is not backed up, it’s lost, they said.

“It definitely wasn’t ransomware and wasn’t financially motivated,” said Jake Williams, founder of Rendition Infosec, a cybersecurity firm, which has analyzed the virus. “The goal was to cause disruption in computer networks.”

Moreover, the email address to make a payment to retrieve data is no longer accessible, said Matt Suiche, a hacker and founder of Comae Technologies, a cybersecurity firm. ... He said in a blog post this week that the ransomware feint was probably a way to make people think “some mysterious hacker group” was behind the attack rather than a nation state.
....

David Filipov in Moscow contributed to this report.

Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter for The Washington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence, technology and civil liberties. Follow @nakashimae

[Zoonart]

1. The Russians are probing...

Looking for the OFF switch.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. For the hackers behind this week's global cyberattack, the mission was pain, not profit

Retweeted by Melanie Evans: https://twitter.com/_melaevans

For the hackers behind this week's global cyberattack, the mission was pain, not profit

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[Igel]

3. It doesn't hurt to state the obvious.

And while the idea was to inflict pain, they could have picked a company in France or the US to launch their attack from.

I'd say there's likely another reason for picking Ukraine besides just wanting to hurt that particular company or the world: More companies now will both block and avoid systems in Ukraine. It will be isolated a bit more, been seen as just a bit more unreliable.

Russians have a lot of ethnic hatred, much of it from a need to feel superior but also from a need to feel respected and appreciated for all their sacrifices (real and imagined). And many feel they have a right to Ukraine, more than the Ukrainians. The rightfull claim to Rus' isn't Ukraine, but Rossiya. It's sort of like the Serbs and Kosovo polje: The local of the deepest historical ethnic pride is found not in current Serbian territory but outside of it. Or Islamist rantings over Andalusia. At least in the case of the Russians and Serbs, it really was ethnically "their" territory back when the historical events happened or for long afterwards. In the case of Andalusia, it was still mostly Iberian non-Muslim. With the Donbas, it's hard for Russians to admit that the reason for its being majority-ethnic Russian was government-sanctioned population movement from Russian areas in Soviet times to cater to the Russian-speaking proletariat--yes, population resettlement to occupied territory. Even Donetsk bore the stamp of that kind of centralized population planning, being named Stalino for a while (after it stopped being called Yuzovka, named after the founder of the first ironworks there, Hughes, and when the non-Slavic population was driven out or "freely" emigrated).


Engaging in perhaps too much hyperbole, one of my (Russian) professors put it this way years ago: "Russia is a great country. Too bad it's inhabited by Russians."

(I mean, seriously. Traditional Russian guitars have screw-on necks. We'll overlook the whole "7-strings and tuned DGBdgbd" thang.)