Attackers have stolen 1 TB of proprietary data belonging to Saudi Aramco and are offering it for sale on the darknet. The Saudi Arabian Oil Company, better known as Saudi Aramco, is one of the largest public petroleum and natural gas companies in the world. The oil giant employs over 66,000 employees and brings in almost $230 billion in annual revenue. The threat actors are offering Saudi Aramco's data starting at a negotiable price of $5 million. Saudi Aramco has pinned this data incident on third-party contractors and tells BleepingComputer that the incident had no impact on Aramco's operations.
This month, a threat actor group known as ZeroX is offering 1 TB of proprietary data belonging to Saudi Aramco for sale. ZeroX claims the data was stolen by hacking Aramco's "network and its servers," sometime in 2020. As such, the files in the dump are as recent as 2020, with some dating back to 1993, according to the group. When asked by BleepingComputer as to what method was used to gain access to the systems, the group did not explicitly spell out the vulnerability but instead called it "zero-day exploitation."
ZeroX shared with BleepingComputer that up until this point, they have been negotiating the sale with five buyers.
[Also Covered By]: GIZMODO
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @06:42PM (4 children)
"Attackers have stolen 1 TB of proprietary data belonging to Saudi Aramco and are offering it for sale on the darknet."
won't someone think of the Saudi oil sheiks!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @07:13PM (2 children)
Does this mean that their amount of oil reserves might get published?
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday July 21 2021, @07:19PM
It does mean they will get published. In fact, they are published now. But also they were published before, too.
https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/169.htm [opec.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @12:54AM
Not all of the oil in Saudi Arabia is under the Saudi Aramco. Seeing their figures compared to the highly suspect official estimates would still be enlightening as to what the entire country has. However, I don't think these numbers will see the light of day because those numbers are more valuable to their competitors even if they were in the stolen data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @11:13PM
Watch it with that racist spam, comrade.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @06:56PM (1 child)
Did they go in through the copy machines?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @08:39PM
They've been through the copy machines, and the middle-man markup. :)
An old saying goes "the enemy of my enemy, is my friend" so when bad things happen to big crooks, it is good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @07:11PM (1 child)
Someone in Aramco probably had a cellphone.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday July 21 2021, @08:44PM
Unlikely. It's Saudi Arabia we're talking here, not Iran.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @12:51AM (2 children)
14 GB of finance department spreadsheets
22 GB of human resources performance reports
964 GB of halal porn
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @12:58AM (1 child)
What's halal porn? Photos of sexy goats?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22 2021, @02:36AM
You got it. It's like kiwi porn, but with goats instead sheep.