Irish firms warned about online ‘Bad Rabbit’ attack

Irish firms have been urged to restrict their employees from downloading software updates from their workstations following the latest global ransomware attack that is sweeping Europe.

The Bad Rabbit ransomware appeared first in Russia, but has since spread to Turkey, German and Ukraine, where flights at Odessa airport were delayed as employees’ computers became compromised.

Computers infected with the malware direct are asked to pay around €240 in exchange for the return of their data. A countdown is initiated that will cause the ransom price to increase if the payment is not made.

The attack is targeted towards corporate networks, with a focus on media outlets including Russia’s Interfax. The attack is said to be located on legitimate but unsecured websites and users are inadvertently downloading Bad Rabbit when they run what they think is an update to the Adobe Flash Player, a popular video streaming player online.

Cybersecurity director at PwC in Ireland, Leonard McAuliffe, said firms could avoid the ransomware attack by only allowing designated computer administrators to download software updates.

He said: “It is not a sophisticated attack and in order to become infected, users will need to complete a number of clicks, so I would urge people to really think about what they are downloading from unsecured websites. It would be prudent for larger organisations to restrict privileges for downloading updates for administrators.”

The Bad Rabbit attack comes months after a global attack that caused havoc in May. WannaCry affected 230,000 computers including the UK’s National Health Service and Spain’s Telefonica, while companies were hit by ransom demands.