Ukraine and other European nations suffered a massive cyberattack on Tuesday, crippling major firms, banks and airports.
The cyberattack spread across Europe, affecting Dutch, Spanish and British nationals. The attack affected Ukraine’s largest power distributor, its largest state-owned lender Oschadbank, as well as A.P. Moeller-Maersk.
The attack also affected the Chernobyl nuclear facility, which needed to switch over to manual control in order to preserve its four active plants. In 1986, Chernobyl was the site of the worst nuclear accident in history, which killed 31 people.
The cyberattack contained ransomware called WannaCry, a method by which a hacker demands payment in order to unlock a computer. Screenshots from computers in Ukraine displayed a message demanding $300 on BitCoin in order to remove the virus.
IT security experts said the attack is likely related to a cyber disruption from May that utilized WannaCry. Ukrainian government officials speculated the attack originated from Russia.
However, on Tuesday morning Ukraine responded to the attack on Twitter by posting a meme saying “this is fine.” The meme is typically used to indicate a situation that is decidedly not fine.
Some of our gov agencies, private firms were hit by a virus. No need to panic, we’re putting utmost efforts to tackle the issue ? pic.twitter.com/RsDnwZD5Oj
— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) June 27, 2017
