As everyone will have seen, the last few days have brought news of yet another “ransomware” attack, this time from a piece of malware known most often as Petya. One unit of the (huge) container shipping company Maersk (OTCPK:AMKAF) is known to have been affected, as is a branch of the French bank BNP Paribas (OTC:BNOBF), but I bring this up here because another company affected is Merck (NYSE:MRK).
There were a number of reports on the first day of this situation about Merck employees coming to work to find locked computer screens, etc., and it appears that the company basically told people to just go home. As well they might – I go back just far enough to remember the director of chemistry in my first job (fall 1989) being mistrustful of the idea of every chemist in the department having a computer at their desk, but buddy, you just try to work without one now.
