Shares of Halliburton Pop Despite Mysterious Cyber Attack... (Weird)

Well it looks like Halliburton just got hit with a plot of Hackers meets There Will Be Blood, but with less Angelina Jolie and more “Oh sh*t, did we just get hacked?” 

(Source: Giphy) 

In short, Halliburton, the energy giant (and Dick Cheney’s former humble abode) has just come to the realization that they’ve got problems - bigly ones. Their North Houston campus became the victim of the chaos as their systems went haywire, while all their employees got a dose of a real life Black Mirror episode. 

(Source: CNN) 

According to the company, this all went down during a routine filing with the SEC. Yet, out of the blue, executives noticed that someone had gained unauthorized access to some of its systems, resulting in “errors” of their business operations and global connectivity networks. Understandably, the company immediately took some of their systems offline while instructing staff to keep from connecting to any internal networks. See: They don’t want to induce any more fat finger Blue Screens of Death. 

(Source: Reddit) 

Now with that said, Halliburton has stated that they’ve seen no evidence of a disruption to their energy services, but what’s really interesting here, is that this cyberattack happens within four years after the energy sector got its a$$ kicked during the Colonial Pipeline mess of 2021. 

Whereas, the FBI concluded that it was sprung on by the hacker gang called DarkSide, who literally turned the East Coast into a real version of Mad Max, as gas prices and fuel shortages skyrocketed. 

(Source: Utility Drive) 

Of course, at this moment, we don’t have any details on who caused this attack on Halliburton, but rest assured, according to spokespersons familiar with the matter, they’ve got “leading external experts” on the case. 

However, while Halliburton’s IT squad has been in full panic mode since Wednesday, what’s even more shocking is how the stock responded. Spoiler: It popped. 

(Source: Giphy) 

You see, normally, you’d think that a cyberattack would crush investor confidence, but nope, not with Halliburton. You see, the stock not only jumped +1.22% the day of the news, but the stock is also popping +1.96% today thanks to the Saudi Energy Minister’s comments to cut crude production. Additionally, analyst consensus price targets remain solid at $38.79, indicating a nice +22.13% upside for the stock.

(Source: Yahoo Finance) 

Yet, in light of all of the news, Halliburton is still down -12.07% YTD, and this incident is just another reason for the energy sector to get its ‘ish together. Why? Well because according to Security Expert, Richard Caralli, most ransomware attacks aren’t all that sophisticated.

In fact, he basically says that it’s basic stuff, like an employee forgetting to change their password from ““password123”. Meaning, it can take a bush league hacker to cause problems. And with the stakes this high in the energy sector (potentially causing headaches like the Colonial Pipeline clusterf**k), a single breach could have ripple effects that go way beyond just a few glitchy systems. 

(Source: Reuters) 

So with that said, if you’re looking for a side hustle to fund your investor aspirations (you know, if you haven’t gotten in on this year’s All-Time High action), the demand for cybersecurity skills are definitely bullish - especially in the energy sector. 

(Source: MakeaMeme) 

So in the end, while investors haven’t been impacted too much from Halliburton’s incident (yet), keep your eyes open. As we’ve seen, hackers are definitely eyeing energy operations as prime time targets, and you definitely don’t want to be holding the bag when the “DarkSide of the Moon” comes knocking your way.

At the time of this writing, Halliburton closed +1.96% on the day, (down -12.07% YTD). 

Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.