The Untold Story of Notpetya, The Most Devastating Cyber Attack in History

This article is a part of my Best Reads of the Month section on my website www.mikegorlon.com. Each month I pick one or two articles or blog posts that I find on the internet which I thought were really insightful, interesting or moving. Then I share them with you. You can view the previous month’s articles by going to: https://www.mikegorlon.com/best-reads-of-the-month
August 2018: The Untold Story of Notpetya, the Most Devastating Cyber Attack in History
Andy Greenberg from Wired recently wrote a very detailed and interesting article about a piece of malware that is estimated to have caused over $10 billion in damages. The malware is assumed to have been created by a group of Russian hackers and sent to infiltrate the IT systems of a software company in Ukraine. The malware then spread to the IT systems of numerous multinational companies such as Merck, Mondelez, Maersk, and TNT Express. The story is a fascinating behind-the-scenes read of how a shipping company saw their computers abruptly stop working and the measures they took to restore their entire network.
The world is much more connected today than it has ever been before and that has made certain areas of it very fragile. The malware originated in Ukraine but spread to places as far away as the UK and a shipping terminal in New Jersey. It even shut down a credit card payment system at a gas station which resulted in the driver not being able to get gas since he didn’t have any cash. There were lots of hours and days spent trying to fix all of the issues that the malware caused. It is being referred to as the most devastating cyber-attack in history and unfortunately with all of the reliance and significance we place on IT systems to run our daily lives, it most likely won’t be the last.
