Bad Rabbit – ransomware attacks countries around the world .A new strain of ransomware nicknamed Bad Rabbit has been found spreading in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere. This malware is affecting systems at three Russian websites, an airport in Ukraine and an underground railway in the capital city of Kiev.

The cyber-police chief in Ukraine confirmed to the Reuters news agency that Bad Rabbit was the ransomware in question. It bears similarities to the WannaCry and Petya outbreaks earlier this year. However, it is not yet known how far this new malware will be able to spread.

“In some of the companies, the work has been completely paralysed – servers and workstations are completely encrypted,” CEO of Russian cyber-security firm Group-IB, Ilya Sachkov, told the TASS news agency. Two of the affected sites are Interfax and Fontanka.ru. Russia hit most “According to our data, most of the victims targeted by these attacks are located in Russia,” said Vyacheslav Zakorzhevsky at Kaspersky Lab.”We have also seen similar strain but fewer attacks in Ukraine, Turkey and Germany.”

Bad Rabbit encrypts all the contents of a computer and asks for a payment – in this case 0.05 bitcoins, or about $280 (£213).

Cyber-security firms, including Tier3, are monitoring this attack.

Bad Rabbit is still undetected by the majority of anti-virus programs, according to our analysis on virus checking site Virus Total. One security firm, Eset, has confirmed that this malware was distributed using a fake Adobe Flash update.

This outbreak of Bad Rabbit bears similarities to the WannaCry and Petya ransomware outbreaks that spread around the world causing widespread disruption earlier this year.