Saudi Aramco - Cyber Attack Before The Lailat Al Qadr

Cyber Attack Before The Lailat Al Qadr

Aramco computers were attacked by a virus on August 15, 2012, the day before the Lailat al Qadr, or the Night of Power, in the Islamic calendar. The following day Aramco announced that none of the infected computers were part of the network directly tied to oil production, and that the company would soon resume full operations. Hackers claimed responsibility for the spread of the computer virus. The virus has hit companies within the oil and energy sectors. A group named "Cutting Sword of Justice" claimed responsibility for an attack on 30,000 Saudi Aramco workstations, causing the company to spend a week restoring their services. The group later indicated that the Shamoon virus had been used in the attack. Due to this attack, the main site of Aramco went down and a message came to the home page apologizing to customers. Computer security specialists said that, "The attack, known as Shamoon, is said to have hit "at least one organization" in the sector. Shamoon is capable of wiping files and rendering several computers on a network unusable."