Qatar's Rasgas office PCs hit by virus
Doha, August 30, 2012
Qatar's Rasgas has discovered a virus affecting its office computer networks but production has been unaffected, the world's second-biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer said on Thursday.
"The company's office computers have been affected by an unknown virus ... It was first identified on Monday," the company said in a statement.
"Operational systems both onsite and offshore are secure and this does not affect production at the Ras Laffan Industrial City Plant or scheduled cargoes."
It was not clear whether Rasgas has been victim of the same malicious software or hacker group that targeted about 30,000 desktop PCs at Saudi Aramco on August 15.
Saudi Aramco also said oil production and key data were unaffected by the intrusion into its office networks by a virus thought designed to wipe files from desktop hard drives.
But two weeks on, the Saudi Aramco website www.aramco.com which was taken offline by the company to limit options for further attacks, remained down on Thursday.
Rasgas' website and email servers have also been off this week, with emails to the company bouncing back as they do from Aramco. A company spokeswoman was unable to say whether this was due to Rasgas shielding its electronic systems from more intrusions or the effect of the virus itself.
A spokesman for Rasgas parent Qatar Petroleum said the group company had not been affected by any virus, while sister company Qatargas was unavailable for comment. Emails from both those companies appeared to be working normally on Thursday afternoon. - Reuters
