Colonial Pipeline is the top U.S. pipeline operator which was recently attacked by a ransomware group. The U.S. government said that this group of hackers might be new but they aren’t amateur hackers. This attack has plummeted the oil supply thus forcing the company to shut down the oil supply in the eastern states of the nation. The White House is working closely with Colonial Pipeline to help them recover the losses after the cyberattack.
The suspect behind this Colonial Pipeline cyberattack is not yet made official but a couple of industry resources have informed Reuters that the group DarkSide is one of the suspects. Cybersecurity has mentioned that veteran cybercriminals constitute the group of DarkSide whose main focus is to squeeze as much as possible from their target. Tension among government officials and lawmakers has increased and this attack is one of the most disruptive digital ransom schemes ever reported. (Reuters)
Colonial Pipeline
After the change of the political scenario in the U.S., the pipeline fix became one of the top priorities for the Biden administration and Washington, said Gina Raimondo, Commerce Secretary. The U.S. government was working vehemently so that Colonial Pipeline could restart the 8,850km pipeline network stretching from Texas to New Jersey. She further mentioned that the White House is working closely with the company, state, and local officials so that the company gets back and up running as soon as possible.
Colonial Pipeline has mentioned on Sunday that the main pipeline network is not in operation at this moment. But there are some smaller lines between the terminals and delivery points which are currently operational. The company is uncertain as to when the company can resume the entire pipeline network again.
Oil Supply Disrupted
Colonial Pipeline is responsible for transporting approximately 2.5 million barrels of gasoline per day and other fuels. It is shipped from the Gulf Coast refiners to the mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States consumers. This pipeline network supports the major airports of the U.S. including Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson Airport. One spokesperson from the Charlotte Douglas International Airport said that the airport has a supply on hand which is supplied by another major pipeline along with Colonial.
The compromise of the oil supply network will have a significant impact on the regional fuel supplies. Since the company is uncertain about when the company will be fully operational again, this outage will affect the southeastern United States, said American Automobile Association. Once the crisis tends to continue prices will accelerate substantially in the southeastern states. Some of the U.S. states that are very vulnerable to this situation are Tennessee, Georgia, and Maryland.
Suspected Criminals for the Cyberattack
The investigation led by the U.S. government is in its early stage but still many of the industrial experts and a former U.S. official suspect it to be the cybercriminal group called DarkSide. DarkSide is a professional ransomware group that avoids setting targets in the post-Soviet states. Their goal is to break into a network and then use software to encrypt the data while they steal data at times. Once this is done they ask for payment to decrypt the data. Additional payments are charged as they continuously threaten to publish the stolen content.
An unnamed source has said that this time the hackers stole more than 100 gigabytes of data from Colonial. While the FBI was working with both government and private officials, the hackers took the cloud computing system offline that they used to collect the stolen data. It seems that the data of Colonial was not further transported to any other system. The company has declined to make any further comments regarding DarkSide.
The Biden Administration
On Saturday, President Joe Biden was briefed about the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack and that the government was trying to restore the company and prevent disruption in supply. The lawmakers are looking forward to working more with privately-held critical infrastructure companies to guard against cyberattacks. (Reuters) U.S. Senator, Bill Cassady has said that this is a question and threat to national security and something that the Democrats and Republicans can work on together.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is issuing temporary hours of service exemption so that refined products are transported to 17 southern and east coast states including Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, and New York. Alternative transportations can be required at any hour and the oil refining companies are looking into it.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more