Ukraine says cyberattack stopped

A massive global cyberattack which began in Ukraine against its institutions and corporate networks has been halted, authorities said.

According to a government statement, all enterprises, including state-owned ones, were now operating normally, Efe news reported.

The situation was "under the full control" of cybersecurity specialists who were working to recover lost data, the government said.

Meanwhile, Boryspil International Airport on the outskirts of capital Kiev was still without its main server.

Deputy airport manager Yevgueni Dijne told television channel 112.Ukraina that airlines were working autonomously with their own IT systems and the main departures and arrivals boards were being updated manually every 15 minutes.

A type of ransomware called Petya hit dozens of European businesses and institutions on Tuesday, most of them based in Ukraine and Russia, in a cyberattack similar to another in May that affected more than 200,000 users in 150 countries.

According to Russian cybersecurity company Group-IB, Petya is similar to the WannaCry virus, responsible for last month's attack that paralysed computers and demanded a payment of $300 in bitcoins for a machine to be unblocked.

Russian cybersecurity giant Kaspersky Lab warned that the virus had affected computers across the globe.

--IANS

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