It wasn’t immediately clear who was responsible for the hacking incident, which followed a different cyberattack earlier in the day on Ukrainian government websites. The Ukrainian government did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
The so-called wiper malware is typically designed to delete data from computers and render them inoperable.
“We are aware of multiple commercial and government organizations in Ukraine impacted by the destructive malware today,” Charles Carmakal, senior vice president and chief technology officer for cybersecurity firm Mandiant, told CNN.
The hack hit at least one Ukrainian financial institution and one Ukrainian government contractor with a presence in Latvia, Vikram Thakur, technical director at Broadcom’s cybersecurity unit Symantec, told CNN.
The malicious code affected “large organizations” in Ukraine, according to cybersecurity firm ESET, which has multiple clients in the country. The hacking tool appears to have been created two months ago, but “was deployed only today and we have seen it only in Ukraine,” said Jean-Ian Boutin, head of threat research ESET.