The Government of Saudi Arabia has warned all government organizations working across the country to stay alerted about a possible cyber attack. As per our sources, a Shamoon virus variant which has the potential to wipe off entire hard disks in a network has resurfaced.
In the year 2012, Shamoon 2 Virus variant hit government networks crippling tens and thousands of computers at an oil firm named ‘Saudi Aramco’. This virus has the capability to overwrite master boot records, making it impossible to re-start them.
Reviewing a report filed by FBI on Shamoon, Ex- US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that the 2012’s Shamoon malware can be treated as the most notorious of all times in the cyber world.
It has to be notified over here that Cyber crooks used images of burning US Flags to overwrite the drives of victims in 2012. The victimized companies include RasGas Co Limited, US Company named Dow Chemical operating in Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco.
As per the security experts of CIA, Cyber Crooks targeting companies and government institutions in Saudi Arabia are using the image of 3-year-old drowned Syrian Refugee Alan Kurdi to initiate the attacks on computer networks.
According to a report published by Al Ekhbariya TV, almost 310 organizations have become the victims of the latest Shamoon Virus, since, Oct’16. And the news resource added in its report that the labor ministry was the worst affected in this attack.
Jubail-based petrochemical Company Sadara Chemical Co is the latest victim of Shamoon Virus as the malicious malware hit the said company’s database on Wednesday last week. As a precautionary measure, the company chooses to shut down all web related services to the network.
Actually, many companies could have been victims of the Shamoon cyber attack. But due to some legal obligations, they decided to remain silent.
