A new malware affected systems at Ukraine’s Odessa International Airport and three Russian media outlets on Tuesday before it was detected by IT experts in Germany, AFP reported on Wednesday. The BadRabbit ransomware breached Russia’s Interfax news agency, the Fontanka news website and a third media outlet, which an unidentified Moscow security expert refused to identify.
The Odessa International Airport said on Facebook that its information system had stopped working on Tuesday afternoon. “All airport services are working in a reinforced security regime,” the airport said.
Russian cyber security firm and anti-virus provider Kapersky Lab said most of the near 200 targets were in Russia. “Similar, but fewer, attacks have also been seen in other countries – Ukraine, Turkey and Germany,” it said. “Overall, there are almost 200 targets.”
Kapersky Lab explained that the ransomware had infected devices “through a number of hacked Russian media websites”. Its investigation found that BadRabbit was “a targeted attack against corporate networks”, and methods similar to those used during the NotPetya attack were used.
Fontanka blamed the ransomware infection on its series of investigative reports on Russia’s involvement in the Syrian conflict. However, Russian Telecom Minister Nikolai Nikiforov dismissed the allegation. “With all due respect to big media organisations, they are not a critical infrastructure,” he said.
This is the third ransomware to hit global computer systems this year, after WannaCry and NotPetya.
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