A computer virus that attacked Ukraine on June 27 is called Petya.A, the company Nova Poshta who was among the attacked Ukrainian companies and organisations, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"Due to the massive attack of the Petya.A virus on our information systems, our offices and the contact center of Nova Poshta are temporarily unable to serve customers. We are working hard to restore our work in the near future. Thank you for understanding. We will keep you inform of the events as they unfold," NP said on Facebook.
In 2016, the publication Hacker reported of this locker-encryptor virus.
At that time, Petya.A attacked the human resources specialists by sending phishing emails of a narrowly focused nature. The mails supposedly contained a summary of job candidates and were accompanied by a fake link to the full portfolio of the applicant on Dropbox. Instead of a job portoflio, the link led to the malware.
Running the file caused the system to crash and then restart with Petya lock screen. The ransomware informs the attack victim that computer or mobile device and access to its data will be locked until the owner or operator pays to regain control or access.
On June 27, a number of energy companies, including Ukrenergo and DTEK, store chains, banks and Ukrtelecom were attacked by the ransomware Petya.