Enlarge / White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders issued a statement today declaring that Russia would face "international consequences" for releasing the NotPetya malware worm. (credit: Getty Images) Following form with a finding by the government of the United Kingdom, the White House issued a statement formally blaming Russia's military for unleashing NotPetya, the destructive "wiper" worm that spread across much of the world last June. NotPetya, which at first appeared to be yet another crypto-ransomware attack similar to WannaCry, was instead designed to simply destroy data.