Gas Giant RasGas Downed By Virus

Qatar-based RasGas, one of the biggest suppliers of liquefied natural gas in the world, has been taken offline by a virus, according to reports.

The news comes just days after oil giant Saudi Aramco came back online after malware infected 30,000 of its systems and forced it offline for almost two weeks.

“The company’s office computers have been affected by an unknown virus … It was first identified on Monday,” Rasgas, one of two Qatari LNG producers, said in a statement sent to Reuters.

“Operational systems both onsite and offshore are secure and this does not affect production at the Ras Laffan Industrial City plant or scheduled cargoes.”

Shamoon?

It is unclear what took down RasGas, but its website was inaccessible at the time of publication and TechWeekEurope was unable to contact the organisation over the phone.

Some suspected that the Shamoon malware, which was designed to infect a system’s Master Boot Record (MBR), making it un-bootable, was responsible for the problems at Aramco.

It was believed at least one organisation in the energy sector was hit by Shamoon, leading some to suggest Aramco could have been the victim. However, there was no validation of that claim and no response has been forthcoming from Aramco.

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