• Contrary opinion: PetraWrap is buggy, poorly constructed ransomware

    Posted on June 29, 2017 at 20:15 CDT by • Comment in the Forums

    Yesterday, I ran an article that says PetyaWrap (NyetPetya, Petya.2017, nPetya, pick your name) “was designed to make headlines, not to make money.” There’s convincing evidence for that conclusion, offered by highly regarded malware researchers.

    But there’s a second opinion which says, roughly, “PetyaWrap was (is) a buggy piece of real ransomware.” Vess Bontchev goes on to assert that it’s from an “idiot ransomware writer.”

    Rob Graham has an excellent expose of that assertion in his Errata Security blog, NonPetya: no evidence it was a “smokescreen”:

    Certainly, things look suspicious. For one thing, it certainly targeted the Ukraine. For another thing, it made several mistakes that prevent them from ever decrypting drives. Their email account was shutdown, and it corrupts the boot sector.

    But these things aren’t evidence, they are problems. They are things needing explanation, not things that support our preferred conspiracy theory.

    Three things I know for sure.

    First, it’s still a problem. According to Ian Thomson at The Reg, FedEx reportedly halted trading on the NYSE because its TNT subsidiary got infected – likely with PetyaWrap.

    Second, the antivirus companies are in hype overdrive mode, claiming this or that about their products and PetyaWrap. I don’t believe any of it.

    Third, the people who say “install all Windows patches right away to prevent PetyaWrap infections” don’t have a clue. The infection method for PetyaWrap is still unknown, and the subject of much conjecture. What we do know is that, if your Windows PC has all of the March patches installed, it won’t get infected by one method, but it may get infected by a different method. Having all of your Windows patches up to date won’t protect you, in spite of what the self-proclaimed “experts” say.

    As for the major network TV show that claimed you could improve protection against PetyaWrap by using strong passwords…. pffffffffffffffft.

    Welcome to the scary new world of Windows, folks.

    Windows Patches/Security
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