Cyberattack Affecting Europe Causes Widespread Disruption

Webcam hacking warning. File photo dated 06/08/13 of someone using a laptop keyboard, as the UK's privacy watchdog warned that people could be watched in their own homes or at work with hackers targeting household we... Webcam hacking warning. File photo dated 06/08/13 of someone using a laptop keyboard, as the UK's privacy watchdog warned that people could be watched in their own homes or at work with hackers targeting household webcams and uploading live footage to the internet. Issue date: Thursday November 20, 2014. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has urged people to upgrade their passwords after a Russian-based website was found to be accessing cameras in everything from CCTV to baby monitors. See PA story TECHNOLOGY Webcams. Photo credit should read: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire URN:21518115 MORE LESS
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PARIS (AP) — Hackers have caused widespread disruption across Europe, hitting Ukraine especially hard.

Company and government officials reported serious intrusions at the Ukrainian power grid, banks and government offices. Russia’s Rosneft oil company also reported falling victim to hacking, as did Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk.

“We are talking about a cyberattack,” said Anders Rosendahl, a spokesman for the Copenhagen-based group. “It has affected all branches of our business, at home and abroad.”

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko on Tuesday posted a picture of a darkened computer screen to Twitter, saying that the computer system at the government’s headquarters has been shut down.

There’s very little information about who might be behind the disruption, but technology experts who examined screenshots circulating on social media said it bears the hallmarks of ransomware, the name given to programs that hold data hostage by scrambling it until a payment is made.

The world is still recovering from a previous outbreak of ransomware, called WannaCry or WannaCrypt, which spread rapidly using digital break-in tools originally created by the U.S. National Security Agency and recently leaked to the web.

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