Editor’s Note: In May 2011, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Pentagon: Cyber Attacks Can Count as Acts of War.” The article began, “The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.”
A Qatar based energy company has been taken offline because of a virus attack similar to the one that crippled Saudi Arabia’s biggest energy company.
RasGas had their websites and email systems taken offline by the attack although they claimed that none of their production was taken offline.
The attacks on middle eastern energy companies come in the wake of warnings from security experts about a new virus being called both “Shamoon” and “Disstrack.” The viruses target energy companies and instead of stealing information like previous viruses, they destroy the computers.
The virus is seen as a next generation to the Stuxnet worm which intended to disable equipment used by Iran to enrich nuclear materials for weapons.
Neither RasGas nor Aramco has released details as to which virus was the ones infecting their networks. RasGas did not state how long they expect their email and internal internet systems to be offline.
