Cyberattack on Mideast energy firms was among most destructive, Panetta says

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cyberattack-on-mideast-energy-firms-was-biggest-yet-panetta-says/2012/10/11/fe41a114-13db-11e2-bf18-a8a596df4bee_story.html

By Ellen Nakashima
The Washington Post
October 11, 2012

A computer virus that wiped crucial business data from tens of thousands 
of computers at Middle Eastern energy companies over the summer marked 
the most destructive cyberattack on the private sector to date, Defense 
Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Thursday night in a major speech intended 
to warn of the growing perils in cyberspace.

Panetta did not say who was believed to be behind the so-called Shamoon 
virus. But he said the malware, which rendered permanently inoperable 
more than 30,000 computers at the Saudi Arabian state oil company Aramco 
and did similar damage to the systems of Ras Gas in Qatar, represented a 
“significant escalation of the cyberthreat.”

Such attacks have “renewed concerns about still more destructive 
scenarios that could unfold” against the United States, he said in an 
address to business executives in New York. He asked them to “imagine 
the impact an attack like this would have on your company.”

Panetta’s remarks on the Middle East incidents were the first from any 
administration official acknowledging them. In the attack on Aramco, the 
virus replaced crucial system files with an image of a burning U.S. 
flag, he said. It also overwrote the files with “garbage” data, he said.

[...]

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