Hackers Lay Claim to Saudi Aramco Cyberattack

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/hackers-lay-claim-to-saudi-aramco-cyberattack/

by antimora • 14 years ago

13 3 14 years ago

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

fruchtose• 14 years ago

I really wonder how the cybersecurity prowesses of US, Israel, China, UK, Saudia Arabia, etc. compare to each other. China, of course, has a reputation for possessing extremely skilled hackers able to penetrate US government networks. The US and Israel are responsible are giants, too, having created Stuxnet--not to mention that the US invented the whole Internet thingy and has the best universities in the world doing research into security.

So what about countries like Saudia Arabia? How do they find engineers and computer scientists to do research in cybersecurity? They do have their own universities, but I imagine they send an awful lot of young men overseas to study at Western schools. Will this become a political issue in the future? For sensitive US government research facilities (national labs, NSA, etc.) citizenship is a basic requirement. I suspect that in the future, Congress will act to prevent universities from training foreign nationals in cybersecurity. The jingoistic rationale will be indisputable--they'll say, "We are training our opponents to defeat us." I cannot conceive of the sea change such an event would bring to higher level education and global politics.

egor83• 14 years ago

Actually something like this has been happening for a while - Iranian students have been restricted from taking some courses in the Netherlands, and for a while outright banned from certain Dutch universities, so as to prevent them from receiving information that could be used in Iranian nuclear program:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranians_in_the_Netherlands#Edu... http://www.opendemocracy.net/pooyan-tamimi-arab/stop-sanctio...

squonk• 14 years ago

There is some truth to this. I've been receiving 'delayed' notices on mail to aramco.com e-mail addresses for several days.

Hackers Lay Claim to Saudi Aramco Cyberattack

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