#Saudi Aramco facing $50M cyber extortion over leaked data

Saudi Aramco facing $50M cyber extortion over leaked data

Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant acknowledged Wednesday that leaked data from the company — files now apparently being used in a cyber-extortion attempt involving a $50 million ransom demand — likely came from one of its contractors.

The Saudi Arabian Oil Co., better known as Saudi Aramco, told The Associated Press that it “recently became aware of the indirect release of a limited amount of company data which was held by third-party contractors.”

The oil firm did not say which contractor found itself affected nor whether that contractor had been hacked or if the information leaked out another way.

“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 cybersecurity posture,” Aramco said.

A page accessed by the AP on the darknet — a part of the internet hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through specialized anonymity-providing tools — claimed the extortionist held 1 terabyte worth of Aramco data. A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes.