Who Petya Hit Hardest—And Why

According to ZDnet.com, the global organizations that have reportedly been affected the most by Petya ransomware include the following:

• National Bank of Ukraine
• Rosneft, Russia’s (RSX) largest oil producer
• WPP, a UK (EWU) advertising agency
• Maersk, an international freight company
• Merck, US-based (SPY) pharmaceutical company

Several flight passengers were also impacted, as the ransomware attack didn’t spare airports.

Apparently, Ukraine was the hardest-hit country. Yevhen Dykhne, Director of Boryspyl Airport in Ukraine, recently stated that “in connection with the irregular situation, some flight delays are possible.”

However, the map above, which was released by McAfee, seems to suggest that the US (QQQ) has been hit hardest. Mikko Hypponen, chief of F-Secure has noted that McAfee has “much better visibility” in the US than Ukraine. F-Secure is a Finland-based anti-virus firm.

Organizations that did not upgrade the recent Microsoft (MSFT) Windows patch security update MS17-010, which was released on March 14, 2017, remain the most vulnerable to Petya’s malware.