Monday, February 28, 2022

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) has urged a
"Shields Up" defense in depth approach, as Russian use of wiper
malware in the Ukrainian war escalates. The Russian malware
"HermeticWiper" and "Whispergate" are destructive attacks that corrupt
the infected computers' master boot record rendering the device
inoperable. The wipers effectuate a denial of service attack designed
to render the device's data permanently unavailable or
destroyed. Although the malware to date appears to be manually
targeted at selected Ukrainian systems, the risks now escalate of a
spillover effect to Europe and the United States particularly as to:

(i) targeted cyber attacks including on critical infrastructure and
financial organizations; and

(ii) use of a rapidly spreading indiscriminate wiper like the
devastating "NotPetya" that quickly moves across trusted
networks.

Indeed, Talos researchers have found functional similarities between
the current malware and "NotPetya" which was attributed to the Russian
military to target Ukranian organizations in 2017, but then quickly
spread around the world reportedly resulting in over $10 billion
dollars in damage. The researchers added that the current wiper has
included even further components designed to inflict damage.

https://tinyurl.com/5n7y9dkf

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