Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia's national oil company Aramco said that a cyber attack against it in August which damaged some 30,000 computers was aimed at stopping oil and gas production at the biggest OPEC exporter.
The attack on Saudi Aramco which supplies a tenth of the world's oil failed to disrupt production but was one of the most destructive cyber strikes conducted against a single business.
Mr Abdullah al-Saadan Aramco's VP for corporate planning said that "The main target in this attack was to stop the flow of oil and gas to local and international markets and thank God they were not able to achieve their goals. It was the firm's first comments on the apparent aim of the attack.”
Mr Mansour Al Turki Interior Ministry spokesman said that the attackers were an organized group operating from different countries on 4 continents. The attack used a computer virus known as Shamoon which infected workstations on August 15 and the company shut down its main internal network for more than a week.
Mr Al Turki said that the investigation had not shown any involvement of Aramco employees but he could not give more details as the investigation was not yet complete. Saudi Arabia's economy is heavily dependent on oil. Export revenues from oil have accounted for 80% to 90% of total Saudi revenues and above 40% of the country's gross domestic product.
