The Human Targeted Attack To Saudi Aramco

Last Updated on May 24, 2015

After nearly a month, the Cyber Attack to Saudi Aramco continues to attract the attentions of Infosec Professionals. If you still have doubts about the fact the human beings are the most dangerous forms of targeted attacks, you should read this article by Reuters: according to internal anonymous sources familiar with the company’s investigation (six firms with expertise in hacking attacks have been hired, bringing in dozens of outside experts to investigate the attack and repair computers), one or more insiders with high-level access are suspected of having assisted the hackers who damaged 30,000 computers at Saudi Arabia’s national oil company last month.

So, apparently, it looks like that Shamoon, in order to unleash its destructive rage, was assisted by an internal mole, “someone who had inside knowledge and inside privileges within the company” according to sources familiar with the company. An event which sounds a little strange, and apparently in contrast with the fact that some coding errors inside the malware seemed a priori to exclude a “state-sponsored” origin for the attack: it is really hard to think about an amateurish operation involving an internal saboteur.

So far, two different groups claimed the responsibility of the cyber attack: The Cutting Sword of Justice and Arab Youth Group, motivating the action with political reasons against what they call Al-Saud corrupt regime (sic). In any case, none of them mentioned an internal assistance for successfully carrying on the attack.

Meanwhile the saga continues, other Oil companies have been hit (Quatari RasGas) by the same malware, and Symantec, few days ago, has reported news of further attacks of W32.Disstrack (Symantec’s Name for the threat vector inside the Shamoon). I wonder if internal moles were involved also in those cases.