udi defence ministry spokesman Colonel Turki Al-Malik displays on a screen drones which Saudi government says attacked an Aramco oil facility, during a news conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia September 18, 2019.
Hamad I Mohammed | Reuters
A recent attack against Saudi Aramco damaged the world's largest oil producer and delayed oil production, roiling oil and gas markets. The Saudi government and U.S. intelligence officials have claimed the incident is the work of Iran, while Iran blamed Yemeni rebels.
This is a real-world continuation of a long-simmering cyberwar between the two countries, which has spilled over into other global powers.
In recent years, Iran has deployed destructive computer viruses against Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom and oil and gas industry have been slow to shore up their defenses, raising red flags about the possibility of longer term fal-out in the region, experts said. Investors should expect long-term cyber espionage and flare-ups of malicious activity, including the potential for destructive attacks that hurt companies in the region beyond Aramco.
Saudi Aramco declined to comment for this article.
Learning from history
Iran and Saudi Arabia have been cyberwarfare proving grounds for more than a decade.
Activity across the Gulf has concentrated on oil and gas companies, which gather terabytes of data related to drilling and oilfields. The oil and gas sector has long relied on potentially vulnerable "internet of things" devices to measure information about the availability of oil, and to power the complex machinery that finds, extracts and refines it.
Iran's nuclear facilities were attacked by a virus called Stuxnet in the mid-2000s. This malicious software was sophisticated, built in a "modular" format. Attackers could use it not only to extract intelligence ..
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