A new threat targeting infrastructure in the energy industry has been uncovered by security specialists.
The attack, known as Shamoon, is said to have hit “at least one organisation” in the sector.
Shamoon is capable of wiping files and rendering several computers on a network unusable.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company said an attack had led to its own network being taken offline.
Although Saudi Aramco did not link the issue to the Shamoon threat, it did confirm that the company had suffered a “sudden disruption”.
In a statement, the company said it had now isolated its computer networks as a precautionary measure.
The disruptions were “suspected to be the result of a virus that had infected personal workstations without affecting the primary components of the network”, a statement read.
It said the attack had had “no impact whatsoever” on production operations.
Rendered unusable
On Thursday, security firms released the first detailed information about Shamoon.
Experts said the threat was known to have had hit “at least one organisation” in the energy sector.
“It is a destructive malware that corrupts files on a compromised computer and overwrites the MBR (Master Boot Record) in an effort to render a computer unusable,” wrote security firm Symantec.
The attack was designed to penetrate a computer through the internet, before targeting other machines on the same network that were not directly connected to the internet.
Once infected, the machines’ data is wiped. A list of the wiped files then sent back to the initially infected computer, and in turn passed on to the attacker’s command-and-control centre.
During this process, the attack replaces the deleted files with JPEG images – obstructing any potential file recovery by the victim.
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