The Biden administration declared a state of emergency today in response to a ransomware attack by hackers on the largest fuel pipeline in the United States. The attack was detected so far two days, most of the oil pipeline system is still interrupted, experts believe that the mastermind behind the name although unfamiliar, but fear for professional veterans.
The BBC News reported that the U.S. East Coast pipeline pipeline provider “Colonial Pipeline” (Colonial Pipeline) delivers 2.5 million barrels of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other oil products every day, supplying 45% of the U.S. East needs.
A cybercrime group attack on the 7th took Colonial Pipeline offline completely and it has not been restored. Biden issued a state of emergency to allow fuel to be transferred by land.
Experts say fuel prices may rise 2-3% on the 10th, but if the situation persists, the impact will be much worse.
The BBC said multiple sources confirmed that the perpetrators were a cybercrime group called DarkSide, who infiltrated Colonial Pipeline’s internal network on the 6th, grabbed nearly 100GB of data and locked some computers and servers, and threatened to put the data on the internet on the 7th if the ransom was not paid. The ransom was paid and the information was put on the Internet for public consumption.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told CBS today that authorities are working to avoid any supply disruptions.
The attack has led cybersecurity experts to call for better oversight of the industry to prepare for future threats.
A former U.S. official and two industry sources also told Reuters that one of the suspect groups is a hacker group called DarkSide.
The group appears to be made up of sophisticated online criminals who mainly want to extort as much money as possible from their targets, according to a group of cybersecurity experts who track DarkSide.
Lior Div, executive director of Boston’s Cybereason, said today that the Dark Side group is “fairly new, but very organized” and is a group that has “been there and done that.
Div said the dark side usually “knows who the managers are, knows who they talk to, knows where the money is, and knows who makes the decisions.
But from the point of view of triggering a massive chain reaction along the U.S. East Coast, Dives believes that the Dark Side’s choice to attack Colonial Pipeline is a major misstep, “to get the U.S. government involved, the FBI involved, it’s not a good deal for them. That’s the last thing they want to do.”
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