Kuawit's Ministry Of Finance Hits Cyber Attack, Server Still Isolated

On Monday, September 18, the Ministry of Finance of Kuwait revealed that it had experienced a cyberattack on one of its systems in the morning. This incident triggered the activation of the ministry's security and protection protocols, resulting in the termination and isolation of hardware.

In an official press statement, the ministry guarantees the public that the hacking attempt will not have an impact on the salary transfer process. In addition, the ministry also emphasized that the Kuwaiti government's financial servers remain isolated and that all ministry operations run uninterruptedly.

The ministry has communicated intensively with the National Cybersecurity Center to keep getting updates about this incident and assessing its impact.

Over the past ten years, several significant cyber attacks have hit the Arab world. Some of them include:

Shamoon attack (2012): The malware attack hit oil companies in Saudi Arabia and had a significant impact on oil production.

Flame attack (2012): Known as one of the most advanced malware ever discovered, Flame infected a large number of computers in various countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.

The SandWorm attack (2014): A hacking group suspected of originating from Russia, SandWorm, is known to have carried out attacks on a number of targets in the Middle East, including government entities.

Shamoon 2 (2016): This attack is a continuation of Shamoon's previous attacks and targets a number of government and corporate institutions in Saudi Arabia.

Ransomware WannaCry attack (2017): Although not specifically aimed at the Arab region, the WannaCry ransomware attack has broadly infected a number of computers around the world, including some in the Middle East.

Triton attack (2017): The attack was aimed at critical infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and tried to disrupt the industrial control system.

Sodinokibi (REvil) attack (2021): This hacker group encrypts data and asks for ransom payments in crypto from a number of victims worldwide, including in Arab countries.

SolarWinds (2020): Attacks: Despite originating from the US, these attacks hit several targets in the Middle East, including government and business entities.

Those are some of the cyberattacks that have hit the Arab world in the last ten years, suggesting that the region has also been a significant target of cyberattacks.