![]() ![]() The hackers were never identified or caught - at least not that we know of. An attack of that size would have easily bankrupted a smaller corporation, Kubecka said. "Everyone who bought a computer or hard drive from September 2012 to January 2013 had to pay a slightly higher price for their hard drive," Kubecka said.įive months later, with a newly secured computer network and an expanded cybersecurity team, Saudi Aramco brought its system back online. World supplies of hard drives - already backed up because of flooding in Thailand - became even more constrained. Kubecka said the company paid higher prices to cut in line ahead of every computer company in the world - temporarily halting hard drive supplies to everyone else. In one fell swoop, it bought 50,000 hard drives. It flew representatives directly to computer factory floors in Southeast Asia to purchase every computer hard drive currently on the manufacturing line. The corporate giant also flexed its muscle. I've never seen anything like that in my life," Kubecka said. Kubecka, living in the Netherlands, was hired as an independent consultant to help secure all of Saudi Aramco's satellite offices in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. After 17 days, the corporation relented and started giving oil away for free to keep it flowing within Saudi Arabia. The company temporarily stopped selling oil to domestic gas tank trucks. Lengthy, lucrative deals needing signatures were faxed one page at a time. Contracts were passed around with interoffice mail. Without Internet at the office, corporate email was gone. Managing supplies, shipping, contracts with governments and business partners - all of that was forced to happen on paper. But the rest of the business was in turmoil. Drilling, pumping - all of that was automated, Kubecka explained. Oil production remained steady at 9.5 million barrels per day, according to company records viewed by CNNMoney. Every office was physically unplugged from the Internet to prevent the virus from spreading further. In a frantic rush, Saudi Aramco's computer technicians ripped cables out of the backs of computer servers at data centers all over the world. "This is a warning to the tyrants of this country and other countries that support such criminal disasters with injustice and oppression," the group said. That morning, a group calling itself "Cutting Sword of Justice" claimed responsibility, citing Aramco's support of the Al Saud royal family's authoritarian regime. Some computers just shut down without explanation. 15, 2012, the few employees noticed their computers were acting weird. The actual attack began during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when most Saudi Aramco employees were on holiday. One of the computer technicians on Saudi Aramco's information technology team opened a scam email and clicked on a bad link. ![]() It started sometime in mid-2012, Kubecka recalled. She told the tale ahead of her presentation about it Thursday at the Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas.ĬNNMoney asked Saudi Aramco to confirm Kubecka's account, but the firm did not respond to a request for comment. But Chris Kubecka, a former security advisor to Saudi Aramco after the hack, spoke to CNNMoney about her experience. Until now, little of this was publicly known. But we all felt its mysterious reverberations. In the 16 hospitals with the capability to provide the best care for patients with COVID-19, the ICU beds were 87% full.The average person has never heard about Saudi Aramco - or this hack. Officials with the Utah Department of Health reported that 84.7% of the state’s ICU beds were full Friday. Angela Dunn said Wednesday that 1,400 high school student-athletes and staff had been tested for the virus, and only 53 individuals had positive test results.Īs Utah saw record-shattering numbers of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations this week, Dunn emphasized that if Utahns will take the precautions seriously, wear masks and limit social gatherings to a single household in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, that Utah will see an effect in lowering the spread of the virus. “We’ve put in place a procedure that we feel confident there will be no way students could attempt this in the future,” he added. “It’s an irritant to the mucus membranes and would do more harm than good in a situation like this.”ĭunham said the number of student-athletes involved was small, “relative to those that took the test.” “Using rubbing alcohol or isopropyl alcohol can actually deactivate the virus on household surfaces, but not a good idea to put inside your body in any way,” Heaton told KSL NewsRadio’s Jeff Caplan. Dave Heaton, Utah Public Health Department spokesman, warned against using rubbing alcohol inside the human body. ![]()
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