A Wiper Attack on a Venezuelan Oil Company: Reverse Engineering the Lotus Wiper that Disrupted PDVSA Systems

In early 2026, Kaspersky published an article identifying a new wiper-type malware called Lotus Wiper . This malware targeted the infrastructure of a Venezuelan oil company with the aim of disrupting its systems. However, what initially appeared to be a standard cybercrime proved to be something more significant when considering the context surrounding the Venezuelan oil company at the time of the attack. The United States had been conducting an economic and military…