Microsoft revealed that Petya's impact was significantly lower compared to WannaCry, which managed to infect hundreds of thousands of computers around the world.
In-depth analysis of Petya, Microsoft says the attack was launched by Ukraine. 70% + of infected systems are located in this country.
Petya vs. WannaCry
But most importantly, the attack with Petya, which uses the same SMB vulnerability like WannaCry, would not be able to compromise systems with Windows 10, according to Microsoft Telemetry Data. The company's telemetry appears to reveal that most infections occurred on computers running Windows 7.
Even so, the attack scale was dramatically lower this time as Microsoft reports that only 20.000 devices were infected.
But compared to WannaCry, the Petya malware hit more high-profile victims as the attack mainly targeted organizations and businesses in Ukraine but also in the rest of Europe. The infection reached as far as the United States, but isolated cases were observed.
Microsoft also said that while Petya was not as successful as its predecessor, it shows a worrying trend: Every new ransomware that is developed improves, and has new features that can bypass advanced technologies security.
“The new Petya ransomware variant we saw this week is significantly more sophisticated than the original. Improved propagation mechanisms compared to those of WannaCrypt by using a second exploit and adding more propagation methods. These side features make ransomware a greater threat to networks containing an infected machine,” Microsoft says.
Of course, Microsoft while advertising the security of Windows 10, did not forget to remind users that to protect themselves from Petya and other new forms of ransomware, they should upgrade to Windows 10 and update their systems with the latest patches.