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A person with privileged access to the Saudi state-owned oil company’s computers, unleashed a computer virus to initiate what is regarded as among the most destructive acts of computer sabotage on a company to date.

The virus erased data on three-quarters of Aramco’s corporate PCs — documents, spreadsheets, e-mails, files — replacing all of it with an image of a burning American flag. United States intelligence officials say the attack’s real perpetrator was Iran, although they offered no specific evidence to support that claim. But the secretary of defense, Leon E. Panetta, in a recent speech warning of the dangers of computer attacks, cited the Aramco sabotage as “a significant escalation of the cyber threat.” In the Aramco case, hackers who called themselves the “Cutting Sword of Justice” and claimed to be activists upset about Saudi policies in the Middle East took responsibility. But their online message and the burning flag were probably red herrings, say independent computer researchers who have looked at the virus’s code.

Nearly 60 million television viewers at home tuned into the final presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, despite stiff competition from two big sporting events. Nielsen said 59.2 million viewers at home were watching during an average minute of the debate, down from 67.2 million for the first debate on Oct. 3 and 65.6 million for the second debate on Oct. 17. The vice-presidential debate on Oct. 11 drew 51.4 million viewers. The match-up between President Obama and Romney was up against a “Monday Night Football” game on ESPN that had 10.7 million viewers and the final game of the National League Championship Series on Fox, which drew 8.1 million viewers.

Before the debates, before the rallies and the speeches and the millions of dollars in political ads, the hunt for voters begins at places like Aristotle Inc., one of the most powerful political data-mining firms in the country.

It's got two-inch steel doors, security cameras and a biometric censor. Democrats and Republicans have been buying voter data from Aristotle since Ronald Reagan ran for president. And this election they're buying more than ever. John Phillips is the CEO. He says elections are like one-day sales. "You've got to get all of the shoppers to the store there on one day and it's hard to argue that balloons and emery boards are an effective way to get people to vote," he says. What's effective, Phillips says, is when a candidate can make every political message feel like a personal conversation. And to do that you need to know as much about the person you're talking to as possible.

A new NASCIO and Deloitte survey that assesses the state of cybersecurity across the nation found that only 24 percent of chief information security officers (CISOs) are very confident in their states’ ability to guard data against external threats. “We saw about 70 percent of CISOs say they saw a breach in their state,” said Michigan CISO Dan Lohrmann, “but my guess is that number is low.” He said a breach won’t necessarily make headlines; it can be something as simple as someone posting an unwanted story on your website. “My guess is it’s more like 90 percent.”