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Destructive Hacks Strike Saudi Arabia, Posing Challenge to Trump (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the major-hack dept.

State-sponsored hackers have conducted a series of destructive attacks on Saudi Arabia over the last two weeks, erasing data and wreaking havoc in the computer banks of the agency running the country's airports and hitting five additional targets, according to two people familiar with an investigation into the breach. From a report on Bloomberg: Saudi Arabia said after inquiries from Bloomberg News that "several" government agencies were targeted in attacks that came from outside the kingdom, according to state media. Although a probe by Saudi authorities is still in its early stages, the people said digital evidence suggests the attacks emanated from Iran. That could present President-elect Donald Trump with a major national security challenge as he steps into the Oval Office. The use of offensive cyber weapons by a nation is relatively rare and the scale of the latest attacks could trigger a tit-for-tat cyber war in a region where capabilities have mushroomed ever since an attack on Saudi Aramco in 2012.

28 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Why would this concern Trump? by LordLucless · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He campaigned on a platform of isolationism. Why would he care if two countries on the other side of the world are hacking each other?

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    1. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't worry, Barron is on it. He's really good with the cyber.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    2. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by Verdatum · · Score: 3, Interesting

      News articles get more clicks when they mention Trump. (I read the article, and I honestly think that could be reason).

    3. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      More like 8%

    4. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      You must be an American because either your history or geography is completely confused. Most Saudi Oil currently goes to Europe. If the Sauds shut down production it would upset the EU big time and then the US as collateral damage to some degree. The increase in oil prices actually would HELP a number of foreign countries like Alaska and Russia.

          But you have to remember that Saudi Arabia really doesn't have all that much else to offer the world. Being annoyed at Iran and starting proxy wars in places no one can pronounce doesn't count. If they don't pump, they don't get paid.

      The Golden Rule, again.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    5. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by unixisc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He campaigned on a platform of isolationism. Why would he care if two countries on the other side of the world are hacking each other?

      Not just that, unlike previous Republican administrations, he takes a dim view of all of Islam: he doesn't view Sunnis as better than Shias or vice versa or any of that. His whole stance of allying w/ the Russians in Syria is based on that: that militias that are financed by the Saudis, Turks or Qatar are just not reliable at best, and Jihadists at worst. That's why he's taken a position that's completely heterodox to the Republicans, if not downright heretical.

      On Iran, what he has to do is pull the plug on that deal, and make it clear to Iran's trading partners that they can choose to trade either w/ the US or Iran, but not both. If European countries are so enamored w/ trading w/ Iran, that's fine: just don't expect to do any business w/ the US.

      But as far as the Saudis go, we have no dog in the fight b/w Iran and Saudi Arabia. Both are our enemies, and the 2 of them fighting each other is an alien vs predator situation, to paraphrase Debbie Schlussel. Or like the 2 cats of Kilkinney. If they can fight each other and wipe each other out, then praise be to allah - nothing like it!

    6. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      More like 8%

      Indeed, and even that is rapidly declining. About 80% of the oil used in America comes from ... America. Much of the rest comes from Canada and Mexico.

      Saudi oil goes mostly to Europe and China.

    7. Re: Why would this concern Trump? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why, indeed. Attacks allegedly "emanating from Iran" are not attacks by the Iranian state in the first place.

      Indeed. It is likely that this is just some disgruntled individuals, or even some rogue elements inside the government. Most Iranians dislike Arabs in general, and Saudis in particular. Iran also has plenty of people pissed off at the nuclear deal, and hoping to sabotage it by stirring up trouble. Ironically, the Saudis also hate the deal, but for different reasons.

    8. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by EEPROMS · · Score: 4, Informative

      The democrats love the Saudi's as they donate millions every year to them especially to the Clinton foundation. Trump on the other hand doesn't need the money so if the Saudi dictatorship have been financing terrorism in Syria in direct conflict with Russia then that's their own fault. Also the USA isn't as dependent on the Saudi's any more for their energy needs so I can't see why the USA should throw another few billion at the "waste of time" islamic infighting in the middle east.

    9. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by EEPROMS · · Score: 3, Insightful

      pfft use google and you get thousands of images for Clinton kissing Saudi butt what off it.

      https://www.google.com.au/sear...

      What I am talking about is real hard bribe money from a dictatorship that hates gays and restricts women's rights in the last election donating to a left leaning democratic party.

      http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

    10. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by MightyMartian · · Score: 2, Informative

      So we're back to the "Obama is really a Muslim..."

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    11. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because the most powerful leader in the world should have a world view utterly devoid of nuance.

      Ignorance is strength, I suppose.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    12. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, nuance, as in that thing that allowed Nixon and Kissinger to sort out that there isn't just one big monolithic thing called "Communists". Nuance, whereby Churchill happily made common cause with Stalin, despite knowing that Stalin was one of the vilest mass murderers in history (the British government knew about the Katyn Massacre, for instance).

      I realize we've entered an age where ignorance is worn proudly, but never have I seen it in more evidence than here, where people who actually spend more than fifteen seconds thinking about the complexities of the real world are regarded as inferior to people whose whole world view is just one big knee jerk response.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    13. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by chipschap · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, I thought Obama was still the President. This happened on Obama's watch. It will be Trump's problem when he is sworn in, but right now it's in Obama's lap.

      Seems like a lot of /. stories lately have "Trump" in the title for little or no reason.

    14. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by dj245 · · Score: 2

      He campaigned on a platform of isolationism. Why would he care if two countries on the other side of the world are hacking each other?

      Not just that, unlike previous Republican administrations, he takes a dim view of all of Islam: he doesn't view Sunnis as better than Shias or vice versa or any of that. His whole stance of allying w/ the Russians in Syria is based on that: that militias that are financed by the Saudis, Turks or Qatar are just not reliable at best, and Jihadists at worst. That's why he's taken a position that's completely heterodox to the Republicans, if not downright heretical.

      On Iran, what he has to do is pull the plug on that deal, and make it clear to Iran's trading partners that they can choose to trade either w/ the US or Iran, but not both. If European countries are so enamored w/ trading w/ Iran, that's fine: just don't expect to do any business w/ the US.

      But as far as the Saudis go, we have no dog in the fight b/w Iran and Saudi Arabia. Both are our enemies, and the 2 of them fighting each other is an alien vs predator situation, to paraphrase Debbie Schlussel. Or like the 2 cats of Kilkinney. If they can fight each other and wipe each other out, then praise be to allah - nothing like it!

      Wars have a habit of spilling their effects across borders. For a time, I was reading every day's front page of the Canberra Times starting in October 1938. The problem of international refugees appeared again and again, and I had to stop in February 1939 because I got busy with work. The war had only just begun at that point.

      65 million people were displaced at the end of 2015. This problem is not just Saudi Arabia and Iran's problem. A lot of the costs of their "not so cold" war are externalized onto other nations.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    15. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by dbIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is the very slim possibility that he will ally himself with Putin and Assad and finally take an active role in actually fighting back against ISIS

      And fighting our current allies in Syria that we were backing against Assad.
      It's a huge win for Putin and a huge stain on our reputation if he can trick Trump into doing that backstab. Trump is a babe in the woods who treats everything like a game and Putin is a professional spy turned gangster turned Tsar who will eat Trump for breakfast.
      I put the possibility at a lot more than slim.
      On the rest I agree with every word.

    16. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by dbIII · · Score: 2
      The Iran thing is pretty stupid really since it's over a decade since we made up with Libya, Russia and all the rest that did far more to hurt us than Iran ever did. Extra stupidity since we depend on their military support in Syria today.
      The "no deal with Iran" thing is just a pointless way to draw a difference between Democrats and Republicans. Now that the election is over we can ignore something that has not mattered ever since Carter was President.

      If European countries are so enamored w/ trading w/ Iran, that's fine: just don't expect to do any business w/ the US.

      Remember Reagan? He did deals with Iran. Are you going to attack his memory for it? How's that as an example of how to deal with pointless Party "branding" that keeps on digging up a dead issue. Look past election tub thumping and return to the real world.

    17. Re:Why would this concern Trump? by unixisc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You have absolutely NOTHING to base your claim on that Trump has any support for Saudi Arabia. In fact, in the past, Saudi Arabia was one of the countries he would criticize, along w/ Japan. When Saudi Arabia executed Nimr al-Nimr, he was critical of them in a debate. In fact, in the GOP debates, while others like Rubio and Fiorina would describe Saudi Arabia as an ally, Trump would not, taking Russia's side in this.

      Trump's foreign policy stances are well known, except to stupid Democrats who conflate his positions w/ age old Bushisms. He was critical of the ouster of both Mubarak and Gadaffi, stating that removing them just resulted in replacements that turned out to be worse. And he was right - in the case of Egypt, there was a brief Muslim Brotherhood regime before the army took over and redid the election, and got Gen Sisi to power. And the NATO bombardment of Libya resulting in the lynching of Gadaffi resulted in Cyrenaica - their oil rich province - becoming ISIS territory.

    18. Re: Why would this concern Trump? by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      To say the 1979 Revolution had nothing to do with the overthrow of Mossadegh is like saying the US Civil War had nothing to do with the New England states abolishing slavery. In reality, it's a lot closer than that. Mossadegh was ousted in 1953, and the Revolution was just 26 years later, and almost certainly the huge amount of anti-American sentiment that typified the Revolution stemmed from the perception (not all that mistaken) that the US had helped the Shah overthrow a legitimate government and then had put him back on the throne, where, with US backing, he spent the next quarter century in equal parts being great modernizer and horrible tyrant.

      And before you blame Islam for that, the 1979 Revolution is hardly the first revolution to go completely awry. The French Revolution lead to equally terrifying consequences for many, and that was in a predominantly Catholic nation. Go back further, and the English Civil War ousted a rather moderate despot in the form of Charles I and replaced him with a pack of religious fanatics in the form of the Roundheads, the leader of which, Oliver Cromwell, used his New Model Army and the Rump Parliament to run England as a dictatorship, not to mention the atrocities he committed in Ireland, which are still remember centuries later.

      In fact, the first wave of the Revolution against the Shah largely came from reformists and intellectuals, most of which who were actually fairly friendly to the West, even if they had every reason to distrust the United States. Their significant error was in trusting Khomeini. When they got into contact with him in France, that wily old fox convinced them that he only intended to return as a symbolic leader, and that he had no intention of actually playing an political role at all. The reformers, who certainly had no desire for any kind of theocracy, for whatever reason fell for this load of nonsense, and of course, once Khomeini landed, he immediately set about setting a theocracy, and the reformers were the first people Khomeini moved against.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  2. Slashdot Trolling? by SandmanWAIX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know if this is Slashdot trolling but these Trump articles need to stop, its getting ridiculous. A better headline would be "Saudi and Iran in cyber shitfight". Trying to shoehorn this into a Donald angle is an overreach.

    1. Re:Slashdot Trolling? by BigBuckHunter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I don't know if this is Slashdot trolling but these Trump articles need to stop, its getting ridiculous. A better headline would be "Saudi and Iran in cyber shitfight". Trying to shoehorn this into a Donald angle is an overreach.

      I'd mod you up, but you're already +5

    2. Re:Slashdot Trolling? by unixisc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Precisely! This clickbait behavior by msmash, Editor David, Beau whatever is really getting long in the tooth and annoying

    3. Re:Slashdot Trolling? by hey! · · Score: 2

      Well, I don't really see that this is a Trump trolling. It's a genuine news story, and it is an interesting question what the new administration will do about it -- if anything. Especially as Trump's proposed Secretary of Defense (Jim Mathis) really, really wants to contain Iran, and Iran's cyberwarfare is one of the issues he's mentioned. Mathis is aggressive and sometimes impolitic, but he doesn't come across as a fool.

      On the other hand the Secretary of State position is up in the air. Currently in the running according to transition team leaks: Mitt Romney, David Petraeus, Rudy Giuliani, and John Bolton. That's quite a range there.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  3. lame by tsotha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Trump connection here is lame. For one thing, it's another month and a half before Trump takes office, and this will have blown over by then. For another, it wasn't Trump who was threatening to go to war over cyber attacks - that was Clinton. But beyond that, the US doesn't have some kind of Cyber Mutual Defense treaty with KSA. This is a challenge for the king of that country - the US isn't obligated to do anything.

  4. Re:Better question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You don't consider large-scale state-sponsored hacking against another state to be "news for nerds"?

    Question the Trump angle all you like, but the actual news here is one of the relative few stories that really does belong on Slashdot.

  5. You mean posing a challenge for Obama? by mveloso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This should read "Posing a challenge to Obama." You know, the guy who's still President?

  6. Sorry, but this has zero to do with Trump or USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There's simply nothing there to concern the USA or Trump. The Saudis and the Iranians are always bickering, and neither side is even moderately civilized. When two sets of primitive stoneage barbarians bicker, there's simply no reason for civilization to intervene from over the horizon. About the most productive thing the west could do here is grab the men who lead both countries, give them sex change operations, and parachute them into some Taliban ruled areas where they could enjoy the true joys of the purity of Islam.

    Sadly, the western world would need to intervene should Iran actually physically threaten the house of Saud since the world is so addicted to Saudi oil....but the Saudis have never been sufficiently decent enough for anybody to WANT to help them. If the US and its allies had more pragmatic energy policies (i.e. full energy portfolios that included oil,gas,coal,geothermal,solar,wind, etc rather than either short-sighted narrow portfolios like "all natural gas" or boutique portfolios like just wind and solar) then the whole world could just sit back and fire-up the popcorn and enjoy the barbarians slugging it out.

    Nobody likes the Saudis or Iranians, who do NOTHING to become even remotely likeable....they just happen to be sitting atop one of the planet's great resources, which makes them sort of temporarily necessary evils.

  7. Re:Barbra Streisand by unixisc · · Score: 2
    Hopefully, we'll see the following headlines:

    Trump announces that Linux w/o systemd to be basis of cyber platform

    Trump demands the removal of telemetry from Windows 10

    Trump offers LGBT benefits to Apple in lieu of iPhones being manufactured in the US

    Trump announces that Extreme Vetting will end only after GNU HURD is in production release