back to article Watch: Armed Ukrainian cyber-cops raid MeDoc in NotPetya probe

There's a new wrinkle to the NotPetya story: authorities in Ukraine have seized equipment from MeDoc, the accounting software maker implicated in spreading the malware. The country's anti-cybercrime unit has seized the developer's servers after saying it had detected new activity, and was acting to “immediately stop the …

  1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Meh

    Other accounting software accetable to Ukrainian tax office is available.

    Handy, that.....

  2. ChrisPv

    Hmm

    Could someone in the know enlighten me who the biggest competitor to the M.E. Docs is and does they have any history of less than stellar business methods?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Hmm

      Putin?

    2. Ole Juul

      Re: Hmm

      With 80% of the countries businesses using M.E.Doc the government is proposing to postpone this year's tax deadline. Not only that, but they've been warned about their lack of security and will face criminal charges. An accounting company of such a size that doesn't care to secure their software needs to be cut down a notch.

      1. Richard Jones 1

        Re: Hmm

        @ Ole Juul, who has been cited, the company or the tax authorities? It is not an issue which affects me or greatly concerns me, but having a better understanding of what went on is always attractive to me. On the other hand everyone thinks their security exceeds all requirement for them, until things go really soure.

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          1. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

            Re: Hmm

            Ah, a story from Russia Today. No mention of the firm being run by Nazi sympathisers?

        2. Ole Juul

          Re: Hmm

          "@ Ole Juul, who has been cited, the company or the tax authorities?"

          @ Richard Jones 1, sorry about the bad sentence structure. MeDoc, the software company has been cited. Reuters had quite a bit of information on this. I can't remember the article, but here's another relevant one. Also, the BBC mentions that the country's national Cyberpolice say the company will face criminal responsibility for their neglect.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Ramazan
        Facepalm

        Re: accounting company of such a size that doesn't care

        Tax office in the Ukraine stopped accepting "paper" tax declarations around 2012 and only takes them in digital format with crypto signature. The law was instated by them, but software was none of their concern, so several underqualified companies appeared on the scene with their proprietary paid accounting/tax "suites" or subscriptions. There are some s/w with limited functionality which are free, but they are closed source too. No opensource tax software exist in the Ukraine that's able to send tax declarations in the format as required by law, and this is a root of the problem.

        Tax office does have a web site, but they don't accept tax declarations via web. You have to install closed source s/w to be able to send your tax declaration. And each time you need to do it (every year or every quarter-year), you must update your tax s/w first because some forms have been changed or whatever.

        Basically proprietary s/w with mandatory quarterly update cycles was forced onto users by the Ukrainian govt, and the govt found nothing better than to lay blame on proprietary s/w devs when shit hit the fan.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hmm

        " An accounting company of such a size that doesn't care to secure their software needs to be cut down a notch."

        Yeah...Sage.

        On a side note, everything has gone a bit quiet since the Sage hack. Reg do your job.

    3. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: Hmm

      Microsoft Dynamics is the only other one I can find that actually does tax filing. SAP will probably give you the numbers but require you to input them elsewhere.

      While Microsoft do have a history of less than stellar business methods, I don't think they would do that, and they are not in the small business accounts/tax market anyway.

      It is more likely to be action by Russia to stop the Ukranian Government from collecting taxes to run their affairs.

  3. Ramazan
    Alert

    http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170704-the-day-a-mysterious-cyber-attack-crippled-ukraine -- please note the "government mandated software" phrase there. This "government mandated software" is MEDoc. So the title of this theregister article should be read as "Ukraine authorities raid government mandated s/w maker in NotPetya investigation".

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