Oil giant Saudi Aramco workstations hit by malware Restored

Oil giant Saudi Aramco back online after workstations hit by malware.

 Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, said on Sunday that the company was back in operation ten days after a massive malware outbreak hobbled 30,000 workstations at the company.

 In a statement on the company’s Facebook page (content alert: Facebook page contains images of extremely phallic architecture), Aramco said that it had “restored all its main internal network services” that were affected by a malware outbreak on August 15.

 The attack was attributed to “external sources.” It is just the latest against a national oil company, following reports of malware attacks on Iran’s oil infrastructure linked to the “Flame” malware in May.

 The malicious Trojan horse, which Sophos named Troj/MDrop-ELD, attempts to overwrite the master boot record on infected systems, which would make it impossible to boot the machine.

 Responsibility for the attack from a previously unknown group calling itself the “Cutting Sword of Justice.”

 The group posted details of the hack on Pastebin, and said that Aramco was attacked in retaliation against the Al-Saud regime for the “crimes and atrocities taking place in various countries around the world, especially in the neighboring countries such as Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon (and) Egypt.

 Pastie bin link:
http://pastebin.com/HqAgaQRj

 We, behalf of an anti-oppression hacker group that have been fed up of crimes and atrocities taking place in various countries around the world, especially in the neighboring countries such as Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt and ..., and also of dual approach of the world community to these nations, want to hit the main supporters of these disasters by this action.

 One of the main supporters of this disasters is Al-Saud corrupt regime that sponsors such oppressive measures by using Muslims oil resources. Al-Saud is a partner in committing these crimes. It's hands are infected with the blood of innocent children and people.

 In the first step, an action was performed against Aramco company, as the largest financial source for Al-Saud regime. In this step, we penetrated a system of Aramco company by using the hacked systems in several countries and then sended a malicious virus to destroy thirty thousand computers networked in this company. The destruction operations began on Wednesday, Aug 15, 2012 at 11:08 AM (Local time in Saudi Arabia) and will be completed within a few hours.

 This is a warning to the tyrants of this country and other countries that support such criminal disasters with injustice and oppression. We invite all anti-tyranny hacker groups all over the world to join this movement. We want them to support this movement by designing and performing such operations, if they are against tyranny and oppression.

 Cutting Sword of Justice

 Attacks against private and public energy-producing firms are nothing new. In addition to the “Flame” malware attacks against Iran’s oil refineries, the US Department of Homeland Security warned in May about ongoing cyber attacks aimed at firms operating natural gas pipelines within the United States.

 In its Pastebin manifesto, Cutting Sword of Justice said its attack on Aramco was “a warning to the tyrants of this country and other countries that support such criminal disasters with injustice and oppression.” The group invited other “anti-tyranny hacker groups” to join the movement.

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Categories: Cyber Crime , Malware