Petya ransomware spreads across Europe

Major firms, airports and government departments in Ukraine have been struck by a massive cyber attack which began to spread across Europe. The virus is believed to be ransomware - a piece of malicious software that shuts down a computer system and then demands an extortionate sum of money to fix the problem. 

The “Petya” ransomware has caused serious disruption at large firms including the advertising giant WPP, French construction materials company Saint-Gobain and Russian steel and oil firms Evraz and Rosneft. It’s not yet clear how computers became infected with the ransomware in the first place, but it doesn’t seem to be through email as happened with WannaCry.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk