Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, confirmed on Wednesday that some of its company files had been leaked via a contractor, after a cyber extortionist claimed to have seized troves of its data last month and demanded a $50 million ransom from the company.
Aramco said in a statement that it had “recently become aware of the indirect release of a limited amount of company data which was held by third-party contractors.” The oil company did not name the supplier or explain how the data were compromised. “We confirm that the release of data was not due to a breach of our systems, has no impact on our operations, and the company continues to maintain a robust cyber security posture,” Aramco added.
The statement came after a hacker claimed on the dark web that they had stolen 1 terabyte of Aramco’s data, according to a post from June 23 seen by the Financial Times. The hacker said it had obtained information on the location of oil refineries, as well as payroll files and confidential client and employee data. In another post, the perpetrator offered to delete the data if Aramco paid up $50 million in a niche cryptocurrency Monero, which is particularly difficult for authorities to trace. The post also offered prospective buyers the chance to purchase the data for about $5 million.
arstechnica.com
