Anonymous, a Middle East-based group of hackers have issued a warning of cyber attacks against oil, gas and energy companies in the region. A cyber security firm, Symantec revealed this.
Anonymous, a politically- motivated group of hackers warned that they are planning to attack tomorrow, June 20, 2014 and after.
The group of ‘hacktivists’ have made these threats in opposition to the US dollar being the standard currency for global oil transactions.
Symantec said that governments at risk of attacks include; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. While some of the possible company targets include: Saudi Aramco, ADNOC, ENOC, Bahrain Petroleum Company, Kuwait Oil Company, Petroleum Development Oman and Qatar Petroleum.
Although details of the tools that will be used are limited, previous observations have led Symantec to infer that the attacks are likely to include; distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, phishing/spear-phishing emails, intrusion and data-theft attempts, vulnerable software exploration, web application exploits, and website defacement.
“Public announcements by these groups are often used as a means to gain notoriety or media attention and can be of highly volatile credibility,” said the security company.
Symantec said it has detection measures in place regarding the recent threat and also issued some recommendations.
