A month ago we learned about the terrible effects of WannaCry. A ramsonware that affected several important companies in Spain, among other countries. And it seems that in celebration of this event, hackers have released a new virus that relies on the same security holes as WannaCry. This ramsonware has been baptized as NotPetya (It is not Petya) and it is that many have confused it with the well-known malware called Petya.
Many of you will think that if you use the same hole as Wannacry, the solution will be the same: nope, NotPetya uses the same security hole but its tools are more complex which means that we cannot use WannaCry tools, even its propagation is more viral than WannaCry.NotPetya not only encrypts our hard drive but also which also infects MFS and MBR, which makes formatting or system restore almost unfeasible for this ramsonware. In addition, NotPetya had an email address to go to or from where they sent us the confirmation of the ransom (how nice these hackers!), But currently this email does not work.
According to the CNI, several Spanish multinational companies have been infected by NotPetya, which means that during the next few days and even over the next few days, we are in a risk zone, risk of having our computers infected by this malicious ramsonware.
To prevent the spread and infection of NotPetya, it is recommended to perform the following tasks:
- Perform a security copy of our data. But a backup copy is not worth a restore point because it cannot be applied.
- Update our Windows 10 and our applications. Both Windows 10 and the applications have bugs and security holes that can create open doors to control our Windows 10 or directly infect it with ramsonware.
- Update our antivirus with the latest databases. Updating and passing the antivirus through our Windows 10 is also a key point since not only do we have to update the operating system but we also have to start the scan for scripts, malware and viruses.
Possibly many of these preventions are contemplated by the creators of NotPetya, but surely that fulfilling the three points is more difficult for NotPetya to enter our computer and do its own thing.