The Russian Trail in the Latest 'Ransomware' Attack

It's almost a reflex to blame Russians for cyberattacks these days, even on the sketchiest of evidence. But such accusations certainly seem justified regarding the novel ransomware attack that has swept the world in recent days -- known as notPetya, exPetr, Petrwrap and several other names referring to its similarity to the well-known Petya ransomware.

On April 28, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko introduced sanctions against a number of Russian companies, including the hugely popular social network Vkontakte and the near-indispensable accounting software developer 1C. The latter was a huge blow to Ukrainian accountants, especially those working for small and medium-sized businesses. 1C, built from scratch by Russian Boris Nuraliev, who is now a billionaire, is established throughout the former Soviet Union because it has made a point of understanding and integrating the vagaries of each country's accounting rules while keeping its software basic, reliable and easy to use for someone without any information technology competence. It also worked as a cheap alternative to sophisticated enterprise resource planning software like that from German vendor SAP.