Saudi-Aramco, the world’s largest oil-producer*, was hit by a malevolent computer virus last week, which crippled nearly 30,000 of the company’s workstations and threatened to permanently delete most of the company’s electronic data. This, by the way, comes directly from Saudi-Aramco representatives, who revealed that the virus “originated from external sources”, and that its private investigations into the matter were ongoing.
As you can see from a company letter, below, Saudi-Aramco has restricted ALL inbound electronic access – which includes email, apparently, as Reuters reported that its attempts to reach out to the company further but saw its e-mails bounced back. The news outlet also noticed one of the company’s sites taken down by attacks remained non-operational as of Friday.
Heady stuff, for sure. Still, feel free to file this in the “it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy” file and yuk it up while you can – it’s not often you get to laugh at douchebag bajillionaires getting a solid come-uppance from what will probably turn out to be a bunch of Jr. high kids!
* I hesitate to call any of these oil clowns “producers”, since – really – what do they produce? Nothing. If I walk along the seashore and pick up shells I’m not a “shell producer”, and these guys are no different. They didn’t make the oil, they just don’t like being called what they are: the worst kind of looters.
Source: Reuters, via ArsTechnica.
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