Code in Aramco Cyber Attack Indicates Lone Perpetrator

By: Eric Engleman and Michael Riley, Bloomberg

Within hours after a virus had devastated the computer network of Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s largest state-owned crude oil exporter, investigators began searching for evidence of who was behind the attack.

Although anonymous U.S. officials have been suggesting that Iran was to blame for the Aug. 15 attack, the cyber detectives say the virus’s code had none of the sophisticated elements that would suggest state-sponsored programmers were responsible.

Instead, they said, as the virus spread through the network of the company known as Saudi Aramco, destroying 55,000 computers, the malicious software failed to perform as its designer had intended.

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