Petya, a new ransomware that hit the internet a few days ago, quickly spreading through Windows computers connected to the network, activated on Tuesday evening, crippling many essential services, including a Cadbury factory in Australia (and we know what a big tragedy that is.) 

We've already written at length about what a ransomware is here. We highly suggest you go through it once again, just in case.  

So back to the topic at hand: another month, another ransomware. This one uses the same backdoor NSA had built in Windows systems not so long ago, so there is no way to patch it out unless you upgrade your Windows regularly, or use a good anti-virus software that protects against ransomware. 

However, do note that this ransomware is more malicious that WannaCry; where WannaCry only encrypted part of your files, the Petya ransomware encrypts your entire hard disk, no two ways about it. The hackers behind this are offering a key that one can enter should they pay $300 dollars in bitcoins to their provided bitcoin wallet address. 

The important thing to note here is that the attack originated in Ukraine, close to their celebration of the adoption of the Ukrainian constitution and freedom from the USSR, a topic for the history books and another website for that is one very large and vast topic to cover. 

Experts have already gone on record to say that the attack does look like a political one, but whether the spreading of the ransomware was intentional or not, it did rapidly spread across the world, activating on Tuesday night and crippling various services. 

As stated earlier, the spread was similar to WannaCry; the leak from NSA by a group calling themselves Shadow Brokers caused unavoidable backdoors into millions of computer systems around the world to be left exposed and vulnerable. Microsoft, sensing trouble beforehand, acted quickly to patch the hole in Windows 10, but couldn't do so for systems older than Windows 8, as it had mostly stopped support. This led to many millions of computers still running on older Windows software ripe for being attacked just because the computer was connected to the internet. 

It goes without saying that people are not exactly that tech savvy when it comes to protecting their identities online, a vast majority of the people online today cannot be bothered to even have strong passwords to protect their very important IDs. Some startups in India have a very lax attitude of data security as well with no idea how terrible things are gonna be when they do actually lose their access to that data. 

But then again, this is India. We are a nosy people, some of us dedicate our entire lives to gossip and put our noses in other people's business, and it is socially accepted because there is a systematic scoffing of the concept of privacy. How many times has your mother or father knocked on your door asking you why you need to keep it locked? Everyone assumes the worst of the other person here as if needing privacy is something dirty. 

The attitude that you only need privacy if you have something to hide needs to change, because of everyone, every last one of us, has something to hide. If you believe that one only needs privacy if they have something to hide, I would very much like your bank ID and passwords, thank you very much. 

The larger point here is that we need to take better care of the gadgets we use to get our work done, and reading about news reports where essential services have been crippled due to ransomware just makes me sad. But that is a story for another time. 

Stay safe out there, it's a minefield.