Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil firm, has had a data leak in which one terabyte (TB) of the company’s data has been collected by hacks and the hackers are demanding $50 million from Aramco to delete the data, which is now being offered on the dark web for a starting negotiable price of $5 million.
What you should know
Saudi Aramco acknowledged the data leak yesterday according to the Associated Press (AP). They stated that they “recently became aware of the indirect release of a limited amount of company data which was held by third-party contractors.”
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The company did not disclose the information of the third-party contractor and they did not confirm whether or not the contractor was hacked or got the information through another source.
“We confirm that the release of data was not due to a breach of our systems, has no impact on our operations and the company continues to maintain a robust cybersecurity posture,” Saudi Aramco added.
The AP also stated that through their investigations and their access to a page on the dark web, they confirm that the amount of data leaked is equivalent to 1 terabyte of data. On the same page, they confirmed that the perpetrators offered Aramco an opportunity to have the data deleted for $50 million in cryptocurrency, while another timer counted down from $5 million, which is likely an effort to pressure the company.
The perpetrators are yet to be unmasked and the Aramco has not shared any other information at this time.
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Bottomline
This is not Aramco’s first rodeo with hackers, as the company was a victim of a cyberattack in 2012. The company was attacked by a computer virus called the “Shamoon.” The virus deleted hard drives and after, displayed a picture of a burning American flag on computer screens. The attack was costly to Aramco as they had to shut down their network and destroy over 30,000 computers.
READ: Cybersecurity in Nigeria’s energy sector: Lessons from the “DarkSide”
This year, Nairametrics reported the cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline in May, in which the company paid the hackers knowns as “DarkSide” $5 million but the U.S FBI managed to recover $2.3 million in cryptocurrency of the money paid.
Saudi Aramco is trading at SR34.90, down 0.29% as of the time of writing this report.
