Representatives of some large Belarusian companies have already applied to the police. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the country, traces of a new virus that attacks Europe, the United States and Asia, found in Belarusian computer networks.

At the same time, the department is sure that the purpose of scammers is to block valuable information and, first of all, viruses threaten financial and accounting departments.

Infected files are sent under the guise of summaries, financial reports, other incoming documentation or masked for archives with documents. In fact, the virus is an EXE file, after the launch of which it is impossible to load the operating system, "the ministry explained, adding that affected users who need a ransom must immediately contact the police.

As explained by the head of the department for the detection of high-tech crimes in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Colonel of the Militia Vadim Ustinovich, the Petya virus encryptor is new not only for Belarusian law enforcers, but for the whole world. Now experts are studying it, and some anti-virus programs recognize malicious files.

Recall, as reported by URA-Inform, the virus-extortionist Petya, which spreads in a similar way to the malicious encryptor WannaCry, struck computers of enterprises, port operators and government structures in Europe, the United States and Asia.

The top ten countries that have most affected the virus are also Italy, Israel, Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Argentina, the Czech Republic and Germany. Russia was on the 14th place. In Russia, a large-scale hacker attack was inflicted on the servers of Rosneft and Bashneft, the metallurgical company Evraz and a number of smaller companies.