Microsoft has issued an official warning to all IT and not-for-profit organizations, along with some critical government organizations across Ukraine, that their digital infrastructure could be targeted by a dreaded data wiping malware campaign.
WhisperGate, currently the name given to the information wiping campaign was launched on January 13th,2022 on Ukraine, just before most of the government websites disrupted across the nation because of a massive attack suspected to have been launched by Russia.
Though the Satya Nadella led technology did not find any links between those behind WhisperGate and the hacking group Dev-0586, it suspects that the campaign could be a result of a retaliation filled cyber warfare launched by the Putin led nation to protest the support of UK and USA to Ukraine.
Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) said that the malware is affecting the Master Boot Record (MBR) on victim hard drives like ransomware and has no recovery mechanism in place after victimizing a network.
The Redmond giant is urging all company CTOs and CEOs to bolster their networks with relevant anti-malware solutions and enable multi-actor authentication to control the folder or data access.
“WhisperGate” has some traits similar to that of the 2017 NotPetya Campaign launched by Russia”, says Calvin Gan, the Senior Manager of Technology, F-Secure.
Note- A wiper malware is a kind of malicious software that can erase data on the targeted victims network or drive. Usually, cyber criminals launch such malware just to disrupt networks and not with any financial motive.
