Ukrainian police have arrested an old man (51 years) accused of spreading the offensive Petya ransomware the same malware that massively hit a large number of countries around the world, such as Ukraine, the UK, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, and many others. The malware is spreading quickly using the same Windows SMBv1 vulnerability that the WannaCry ransomware used to attack about 300,000 devices around the world.
According to cyberpolice, Sergey Neverov (the accused) is a video blogger who was arrested by the Ukrainian police on Monday, August 7 from his home for uploading a video, showing people how to infect a computer with the malware (Petya) and also shared a download link for the ransomware to his social media account. At the place of residence of the attacker, cyber police officers conducted an authorized search. In particular, as a result of the search police seized computer equipment which spread a computer virus called «Petya.A».
The police charged the blogger of spreading a copy of Petya ransomware via his social media account that finally infected about 400 machines in Ukraine.
The Ukranian guy never attempted to cover his identity, he exposed his face in some videos and the exact GPS location to his home in Nikopol, which indicates that he had nothing to hide, neither his intentions were wrong.