Well an interesting day today in Spain some big companies including TELEFONICA, Gas natural , Iberdrola and many other big companies have suffered a massive attack today from which looks like Chinese hackers demanding 300 bitcoins in exchange for unlocking the computer systems affected.
Of course the headlines here in Spain are making bitcoin look bad as mainstream media likes to do in these cases. But nobody is focusing on how vulnerable centralized systems are and how easy it is to steal data. I personally am happy to hear about this and Im quite sure we will be seeying more and more of these kind of attacks as time passes. Especially when it comes to banks and other large corporations which monopolize business, drive up prices and basically abuse our shitty undemocratic system.
For more information read the full article here
Spain’s former state telecommunications company Telefónica suffered a malware attack on Friday, which affected the computers of the personnel working at the central headquarters in Las Tablas, Madrid. The computer virus caused computers to crash, leaving blue screens and rendering devices useless.
Hours later, the cryptology branch of Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI) confirmed that the virus was affecting a number of other organizations. “There has been a warning over a massive ransomware attack on a number of organizations and that affects Windows systems, encrypting all of their files and the network units to which they are connected, infecting the rest of the Windows systems on the said network,” the CNI said. Ransomware programs render users’ computers useless, until a financial payment is made to the hackers, who then unlock the machines.
Staff have been told to disconnect their cellphones from the corporate Wi-Fi network
Reports were also being circulated on Friday that the same virus was affecting other companies in Spain, such as consultancy firm KPMG, banks BBVA and Santander, power company Iberdrola and telecoms giant Vodafone. Twitter users claiming to be employees of said companies reported the attack, with some claiming they had received requests to pay in bitcoin to have their machines unlocked. So far, however, none of these companies has officially admitted they have been affected.At Telefónica, the incident did not have any effect on the systems that control the internet, fixed line and cellphone services that the company provides for its more than 15 million customers, a spokesperson told EL PAÍS.Sources from the company said that “around a hundred computers” had been affected, although other, non-official sources spoke of many more, prompting an internal email to be sent out to all employees in the building instructing them to turn off their computers, “and not switch them back on until further notice.”The internal communication from the company’s security team stated that “malware that affects your data and files has been detected as having entered the Telefónica network.” The memo called on the recipient to warn all colleagues of the situation, as well as instructing them to disconnect their cellphones from the corporate Wi-Fi network.
