A Cyberattack in Saudi Arabia Had a Deadly Goal. Experts Fear Another Try.<br />“If attackers developed a technique against Schneider equipment in Saudi Arabia, they could very well deploy the same technique here in the<br />United States,” said James A. Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.<br />“Not only is it an attack on the private sector, which is being touted to help promote growth in the Saudi economy,<br />but it is also focused on the petrochemical sector, which is a core part of the Saudi economy,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an expert on Middle East energy at the Council on Foreign Relations.<br />And United States government officials, their allies and cybersecurity researchers worry<br />that the culprits could replicate it in other countries, since thousands of industrial plants all over the world rely on the same American-engineered computer systems that were compromised.<br />Some technical details of the attack in August have been previously reported,<br />but this is the first time the earlier attacks on Tasnee and other Saudi petrochemical companies have been reported.<br />Government officials and cybersecurity experts in Saudi Arabia and the United States attributed the 2012 Shamoon attack to Iranian hackers.<br />Energy experts said the August attack could have been an attempt to complicate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plans to encourage foreign<br />and domestic private investment to diversify the Saudi economy and produce jobs for the country’s growing youth population.<br />In January 2017, computers went dark at the National Industrialization Company, Tasnee<br />for short, which is one of the few privately owned Saudi petrochemical companies.
