CANBERRA, June 29 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government is "ready and willing" to assist at least three companies affected by the Petwrap ransomware attack which crippled IT systems across the world this week, Australia's Cyber Security Minister Dan Tehan said on Thursday.
The Petwrap ransomware attack is believed to have started in Ukraine on Tuesday, but spread to vital IT systems the world over, asking users of affected computers to pay 300 U.S. dollars' worth of Bitcoin to remove the virus.
Speaking to local media on Thursday, Tehan said the impact was minimal in Australia, but at least three companies - including chocolate maker Cadbury - had been affected.
"The latest advice is there are three multinational companies which are reporting that they have been impacted," Tehan told Sky News.
"Two of those are likely due to the Petwrap ransomware attack that has led to them having their systems impacted. We've offered support and assistance to those companies and we stand ready and willing to work with them.
"Obviously we're still monitoring the situation, and we're in constant contact with our Five Eyes partners, so that's intelligence in Canada, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom.
"So far, like the WannaCry ransomware attack, the impact seems to be very minimal in Australia."
Tehan said the source of the attack was still unknown, and while cyber criminals were the likely perpetrators, authorities could not rule out cyber espionage at this point.
"There are two things I can say one this. One is that there are sophisticate cyber criminal networks which are using viruses and ransomware to exploit, so it could be cyber criminal. But as I said previously, cyber espionage is alive and well," Tehan said on Thursday.
"So there are two possibilities. We will obviously track and monitor and get a sense of what has occurred, but that takes time. So we might not know for a couple of weeks before we get a sense of what has occurred."
