The current Cyber-Attack ‘Petya Ransomware’ is 'More Sophisticated' than WannaCry, Says Europol

The freshly happened cyber-attacks that recently targeted Europe and North America appears to be quite comparable to last month's WannaCry ransomware havoc, but emerges out potentially "more sophisticated," the European police agency reported recently.

Categorizing it as "another serious ransomware attack," Europol said "critical infrastructure and business systems" were being targeted "with a new wave of ransomware, which is an updated version of Petya."

"The attack has caused infections worldwide and has not yet been stopped," the agency based in The Hague warned recently.

Although director Rob Wainwright said that the number of victims was not yet known, Europol has set up a coordination cell already and is "actively monitoring" the increase of the attacks.

"There are clear similarities with the WannaCry attack, but also indications of a more sophisticated attack capability, intended to exploit a range of vulnerabilities," Wainwright said in a statement.

Also, as per a research it is been found that Petya has been around since 2016, but it does not just encrypt files on infected devices it also overwrites the master boot record.

As per Europol, the malware has the effect of depiction the computer useless and prevents users from recovering any information.

It warned that dissimilar WannaCry "this attack does not comprise any type of 'kill switch'."

"It is a demonstration of how cybercrime evolves at scale and, once again, a reminder to business of the importance of taking responsible cyber-security measures," added Wainwright.

First detected few days ago in Ukraine, the malware locks the computer's data and then ask a user they must pay to get is all back. To this, the European police agency advised any person who is falling victim to the newest attacks should not to pay up, but should immediately report the case to the police and to cut off and separate impure computers from the internet.