Panetta: US Gulf Companies under Most Destructive Cyber Attacks

Local Editor

A former US government official revealed Friday that US American authorities firmly believe that Iranian hackers were responsible for recent cyber-attacks against oil and gas companies in the Persian Gulf and that they appeared to be in retaliation for the latest round of US sanctions against the country.

The former official spoke to The Associated Press shortly before US War Secretary Leon Panetta, in a speech to business leaders in New York City Thursday night, became the first US official to publicly acknowledge the computer-based assaults. He called them probably the most destructive cyber-attacks the private sector has seen to date.
And while Panetta did not directly link Iran to the Gulf attacks, he made it clear that the US has developed advanced techniques to identify cyber-attackers and is prepared to take action against them.
A US official said the Obama administration knows who launched the cyber-attacks against the Gulf companies and that it was a government entity.
"US agencies have been assisting in the Gulf investigation and concluded that the level of resources needed to conduct the attack showed there was some degree of involvement by a nation state," said the former official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is classified as secret.

Panetta noted that Iran has "undertaken a concerted effort to use cyberspace to its advantage."
The cyber-attacks hit Saudi Arabian state oil company Aramco and Qatari natural gas producer RasGas using a virus, known as Shamoon, which can spread through networked computers and ultimately wipes out files by overwriting them.

Senior defense officials said the information was declassified so that Panetta could make the public remarks. The officials added that the Pentagon is particularly concerned about the growing Iranian cyber capabilities, as well as the often discussed threats from China and Russia.
In his speech, Panetta said the Shamoon virus replaced crucial system files at Aramco with the image of a burning US flag, and also overwrote all data on the machine, rendering more than 30,000 computers useless and forcing them to be replaced. He said the Qatar attack was similar.

"These attacks mark a significant escalation of the cyber threat," Panetta said. "And they have renewed concerns about still more destructive scenarios that could unfold."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org