General Insurance Article - Petya ransomware virus expert - do not power up

 “We expected another wide scale virus attack shortly after Wannacry, as cyber criminals copied and improved on a Wannacry styled virus. If you have any computers that are infected with Petya and your machine has crashed / powered off - do not power up! Use a LiveCD or external machine to recover files. Our Cyber team has been able to ascertain that as long as you do not go past the CHKDSK message, your files are safe and you can recover them. Our global cyber team with centres in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, US, Canada, South America and Asia are ready to assist.

 Several insurers have been paying ransoms when insured are hit by ransomware, as a quick way of resolving the issue. This only funds the cyber criminals and the short term gain can quickly turn painful if a firm is added to a ‘sucker-list’ by cyber criminals, indicating that you are susceptible to ransom.

 Computers affected by Petya now have the added headache that the author’s email account has now been frozen, meaning that paying a ransom is no longer an option as they can’t provide decryption keys”