Saudi Arabia has warned organizations inside the kingdom to be vigilant of cyber attacks after the country’s labor ministry and chemicals firms reported hacks.
On Monday, the kingdom’s telecommunication authority issued a warning to all parties to be on alert for attacks by the Shamoon 2 virus, a variant of a malicious program that crippled tens of thousands of computers belonging Saudi Arabia’s state-run oil company Aramco a few years ago.
The country’s state-run Al Ekhbariya TV also announced that several Saudi organizations and the labor ministry had been hit by cyber attacks.
Ministry of labor spokesman Khaled Aba Al-Khail confirmed the virus attacks, noting that they were coordinating with the National Center for Cybersecurity to clear up the issue.
He stressed that only some websites and some user systems had been damaged, and that customer information databases had not been breached.
Sadara Chemical Co. and other Jubail-based firms also announced disruptions, which — according to sources — forced them to take their networks offline.
Source: Websites
