14 DAY TRIAL // The systems of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, have been breached by hackers who have managed to plant a virus in the organization’s networks. However, it turns out that there are two sides to this story.
First of all, the oil giant admitted that it had to take some serious measures as a result of a security breach.
“On Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012, an official at Saudi Aramco confirmed that the company has isolated all its electronic systems from outside access as an early precautionary measure that was taken following a sudden disruption that affected some of the sectors of its electronic network,” the firm’s representatives stated.
“The disruption was suspected to be the result of a virus that had infected personal workstations without affecting the primary components of the network.”
They claim that the incident has been contained, without having any impact on the company’s production operations.
“Saudi Aramco IT experts anticipate resuming normal operations of its network soon,” they concluded.
On the other hand, one of the hacker groups that has taken credit for the breach (at least two collectives claim to be behind the attack) says that the virus has caused serious damage to Saudi Aramco’s infrastructure.
They claimed to have “destroyed” 30,000 computers owned by the organization, which, according to anonymous sources, represents around 75% of Aramco’s network.
They state that a large amount of sensitive information has been stolen and that the damage inflicted on the company’s systems will probably affect operations for quite some time.
The hacktivists also reveal the reason for which the oil company has become a target. They claim that the regimes in Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt and other similar countries are using Muslim oil resources to fund their crimes against innocent citizens.
Currently, aramco.com and saudiaramco.com are offline. A few hours ago, the visitors of Aramco.com were redirected to saudiaramco.com, which at the time appeared to be working properly.