FIONA MCKAY

BRITAIN’S biggest advertising company WPP is among dozens of major companies across Europe, Russia, Ukraine and the US to have fallen victim to one of the largest cyber attacks ever seen.

The firm, which employs tens of thousands of people in Britain and Ireland, was among several leading firms whose IT systems have been with the “Petya” and “Petrwrap” malware virus that got past weaker security systems.

Others affected include the shipping company Maersk Line, whose computer systems in the UK and Ireland had collapsed.

Meanwhile, staff at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine, scene of a catastrophic accident in 1986, had to manually monitor radioactive levels after its Windows-based operating system went down.

Toblerone’s manufacturers, Mondelez, said it had technical problems in different regions while Russian oil producer Rosneft was also affected.

Cyber-security firm Kapersky Labs said it was “a new ransomware that has not been seen before” and said analysis showed that there had been about 2,000 attacks

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It said most of these occured in Ukraine, Russia and Poland with Ukrainian firms, including the state power company and Kiev’s main airport, among the first to report issues.

The latest attack comes just weeks after ransomware downed systems across the globe, including the NHS in the UK.

More than 200,000 victims in around 150 countries were infected by the WannaCry or Wanna Decryptor ransomware, which originated in the UK and Spain last month, before spreading globally.

The current ransomware, the name given to programmes that hold data hostage by scrambling it until a payment is made, is known as GoldenEye or Petya, according to Bogdan Botezatu, a senior e-threat analyst at Bitdefender.

Mr Botezatu said on Tuesday evening that malware operators received 13 payments totalling 3,500 US dollars in digital currency in almost two hours.

He said: “Bitdefender has identified a massive ransomware campaign that is currently unfolding worldwide.

“Preliminary information shows that the malware sample responsible for the infection is an almost identical clone of the GoldenEye ransomware family.”

He added: “I would strongly advise against paying the ransom, because this keeps this vicious circle in which hackers get enough money to fuel even more complex malware and this is why ransomware has become so popular in just three years.

“It’s a billion dollar business and the more customers they have, the more advanced the future ransomware attacks will be.”

The National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of intelligence agency GCHQ, said there was a “global ransomware incident”.

A spokesman said: “We are aware of a global ransomware incident and are monitoring the situation closely.

“The NCSC website provides advice to the public and business on how to protect your digital systems.”

WPP, the world’s biggest advertising business, confirmed it had been hit, while global law firm DLA Piper has taken its email system down as a preventative measure.

The National Crime Agency in the UK said it was investigating, while international police organisation Interpol said it was “closely monitoring” the situation and liaising with its member countries.

The attack follows a recent cyber attack on Westminster where up to 90 email accounts were compromised.