A new report by a Spain-based cloud
security company, Panda Security, has detailed a malicious and largely
unknown targeted attack on the oil and gas industry, which it says is
coming from the Nigerian scam industry.
The ongoing attack, said to have begun in
August 2013, was first discovered by.....
Panda Security in January 2014,
and is designed to steal information and credentials for defrauding oil
brokers.
In the report entitled: ‘Operation Oil
Tanker: The Phantom Menace’, released on Monday, the company said the
scheme had victimised a number of oil and gas buyers, getting them to
pay for non-existent crude.
It said none of the dozens of the
affected companies had been willing to report the invasion and risk
global attention for the vulnerability in their IT security networks.
Founded in 1990, Panda Security is regarded as the world’s leading provider of cloud-based security solutions.
It stated in the report, “The Nigerian
scam industry is large and varied. Some variants are almost unknown and
affect all kinds of sectors, including the oil industry.
“The Nigerian town of Bonny is well-known
in oil production circles as the oil produced there, known as Bonny
Light crude oil, has a very low sulphur content, which makes it a highly
desired grade for its low corrosiveness.
“The fact that this type of oil is in
such high demand has given rise to a particular type of scam aimed at
oil brokers, individuals who arrange transactions involving crude oil
between buyers and sellers.”
According to Panda Security, the
fraudsters offer a large amount of high-quality Bonny Light crude oil
from Nigeria “at a very competitive price.”
The company noted that every gas and oil
transaction is supervised by the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation, adding that anybody who wanted to trade with oil in the
country must be registered with the NNPC.
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