Impact of Cyber Attack on Saudi Aramco

Abstract

Saudi Aramco is the world’s leading oil producer based in Saudi Arabia. Around 1/10th of oil is exported from this organization to the world. Oil production is the major source of revenue for Saudi Arabia and its economy relies completely on it. The Shamoon virus attacked Saudi Aramco in August 2012. The country receives over 80% to 90% of total revenues from the exports of oil and contributes over 40% of the GDP [8]. Shamoon spread from the company's network and removed all of the hard drives. The company was limited only to office workstations and the software was not affected by the virus, due to which all technical operations could have been affected. It was the most disastrous cyber attack in the history of Saudi Arabia. Around 30,000 workstations had been infected by the virus. This paper also discusses the effects of Ransomware which recently attacked Aramco. Apart from that, we will also discuss some suggestions and security measures to prevent those attacks.