MOSCOW, June 28. /TASS/. There is a need for international cooperation in the fight against cyber crime, Russian Federation Council (upper house of parliament) Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Wednesday.

"Cyber crime poses a very serious threat that no country is capable of combating alone. There is a need to outline an international mechanism to counter these threats," she said.

The Russian senate speaker added that the Federation Council’s website had not been affected by the Tuesday cyber attack. "The Federation Council’s information system and our website operate as normal, which shows that they are protected well," Matviyenko added.

"Almost all countries could be vulnerable to cyber attacks," she went on to say. "Together with terrorism, cyber crime, that targets information systems, is a very serious threat," Matviyenko stressed.

"At the first meeting of the Federation Council’s interim commission on preventing interference in Russia’s domestic affairs, which took place yesterday, it was announced that cyber attacks on the US computer systems carried out from Russia’s territory account for only two percent of cyber attacks, while around 23-30% of cyber attacks on Russia’s information systems are conducted from the US territory. But it does not prove anything because nowadays you can register wherever you like. This is the reason why it is only possible to combat these threats together," the Russian Federation Council speaker stressed.

New cyber attack

On Tuesday, a massive cyber attack on Russian and Ukrainian companies was recorded. According to the Group-IB company, which prevents and investigates cyber crimes, a ransomware named Petya attacked around 80 companies, including Rosneft, Bashneft, Mars, Nivea and Mondelez.

Besides, computers have been infected in Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the United States. On Wednesday, a source in the Russian cybersecurity and anti-virus provider Kaspersky Lab said that the number of affected computers had reached 2,000. At the same time, experts say that hackers are using a malware named exPetr, indirectly related to the Petya ransomware.

The malware blocks computers and prevents users from uploading an operating system. The virus extorts a $300 ransom in bitcoins to regain computer access and decrypt files.