ESET Research Labs said on Wednesday it detected data-wiping malware on “hundreds of machines across the country.” This type of malware had not been seen before. It is not known how many networks have been affected by this. Research Labs said that many large organizations were the target of this malware.
Breaking. #ESETResearch discovered a new data wiper malware used in Ukraine today. ESET telemetry shows that it was installed on hundreds of machines in the country. This follows the DDoS attacks against several Ukrainian websites earlier today 1/n
— ESET research (@ESETresearch) February 23, 2022
Meanwhile, Symantec Threat Intelligence has detected three organizations affected by the Viper malware. These include Ukrainian government contractors in Latvia and Lithuania and a financial institution in Ukraine. Keep in mind that both Latvia and Lithuania are members of NATO. Experts say that cyber attackers do not even care about which country they are targeting.
The three organizations that were targeted were very close to the Ukrainian government. About 50 computers were targeted in the cyber attack at the Financial Institute. Much of their data was wiped out. Ukraine’s Senior Cyber Defense Officer Viktor Zora has not said anything about the Viper attack. It is being said that this malware was prepared in late December.
Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist at cyber security firm, Sophos, said that Russia may have been planning this for several months. It is difficult to say how many organizations or agencies are involved in the preparation of these attacks. Perhaps the attackers want to show how much control they have over Ukraine’s infrastructure.
At present, experts are trying to understand how serious the attack is. Earlier in January, several websites of the Ukrainian government and organizations were also targeted in the cyber attack. At that time Ukraine blamed Russia for this. Russia denied having a hand in us.
Cyber attacks in Ukraine have been a major tool of Russian attacks. Russia is also believed to have carried out cyber attacks against Estonia in 2007 and Georgia in 2008.
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