Saudi Gazette report DAMMAM — Aramco has identified the hacker who accessed the company's computers and disabled 30,000 stations and 2000 servers. The attack affected the company's automated programs for more than a month. Hacking was basically done to steal important and classified information, a local daily reported Monday quoting a reliable source. The hacker, the source was quoted as telling the daily, had carried out the operation from an unnamed East European country. The name of the country has been withheld so as not to affect further investigations carried out by some Western countries, the daily said. It said the hacker planted a virus which destroyed hard disks used primarily for storage of information. The hacker also planted a virus that affected personal workstations. Aramco, the source said, had sought the help of six specialized companies well-versed in dealing with viral attacks. An IT specialist at Symantec said he did not recall disruption of this magnitude happening in the past 10 years. Aramco will most likely hand over the case to concerned authorities in the Kingdom to follow up with foreign authorities. It has restored service to its employees' computers by employing a series of precautionary measures and multiple redundant systems within its advanced and complex technology that is used to protect its operational and database system. It also stressed that the attack did not affect any core business systems, nor did it hit production operations because the affected computers were efficiently and immediately repaired. The source was quoted as saying that the company's gas and oil operations were not affected in any way. The company, the report said, has fulfilled its obligations toward its local and foreign clients.
