MOSCOW, June 27 (Xinhua) -- More than 80 companies in Russia and Ukraine came under massive cyberattacks on Tuesday, including Russia's oil giant Rosneft, according to Moscow-based cyber security company Group-IB laboratory.
"According to our data, more than 80 companies in Russia and Ukraine have suffered as a result of the attack with the help of the virus-encryptor Petya," head of Group-IB Valery Baulin was quoted by Russia's RNS news agency as saying.
The cyberattack targeted a number of oil, telecommunications and financial companies in Russia and Ukraine, blocking computers and demanding 300 U.S. dollars in bitcoins, Group-IB told Russia's Prime news agency.
Russia's oil giant Rosneft said Tuesday that it was hit by a large-scale cyberattack on its servers, which has not affected its oil production due to a timely switch to a backup control system.
"Neither the production process, nor mining and preparation of oil were stopped," the company said on Twitter.
Access to Rosneft and its subsidiary Bashneft's websites is unavailable for the moment as a result of the attack.
Apart from Rosneft and Bashneft, Ukrainian companies Zaporozhyeoblenergo, Dneproenergo and Dnipro Electricity System were also among the victims of the cyberattacks, according to Group-IB.
"The government computers of Ukraine, the Kiev subway, Auchan stores, Ukrainian telecommunications operators (Kyivstar, LifeCell, UkrTeleCom), Privatbank, Boryspil airport, presumably, also underwent a hacker attack," the representative of Group-IB added.
Baulin stressed that the attack is not connected with ransomware virus WannaCry, which swept across the globe just a month ago, affecting more than 200,000 computers in some 150 countries.
Nevertheless, the latest wave of cyberattacks also seem to have become global.
"Petya ransomware variant with contact wowsmith123456@posteo.net spreading worldwide, large number of countries affected," Costin Raiu, director of Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky Lab, said on his personal Twitter account.
An increasing number of companies from different countries including Denmark and the Netherlands are joining the victim list, according to media reports and social media posts.
