Reports say Colonial Pipeline paid a ransomware team that took out a crippling cyberattack on Thursday. The team was earlier identified as DarkSide, charged nearly 5M dollars, two other references familiar with the incident have stated. The sources CNN could not tell how much the company paid. Bloomberg initially informed the ransom payment. Various sources said that Colonial Pipeline had not paid the price. It is not so clear as to when the payment was made.
In the coming days, restarting the pipeline will help restore gasoline flow across the Eastern part of the United States, where fuel deficits are abundant. The 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, which carries more than 100M tons of fuel per day, or approximately half of the East Coast’s supply, was driven offline on Friday by a Russian hacking team, DarkSide, that demanded $100 million ransom. About 68% of gas stations in North Carolina reported fuel blackouts, according to Gas Buddy. Almost half of the gas stations in South Carolina, Georgia, Washington, D.C., and Virginia also listed outages. Catsimatidis added that the pipeline is going to flow by Monday at the least.”
What’s the point?
Colonial Pipeline was hard hit with a ransomware attack, and Americans are suffering. Bloomberg stated the hackers started their attack last Thursday by stealing about 100GB of data in a double corruption scheme that holds the data hostage and frightens to leak it. The company locked some of its operations to block malicious software from spreading. President Joe Biden issued an executive order on Wednesday to aim at restoring U.S. cybersecurity. The wide-ranging action includes the creation of a Cyber Safety Review Board that convenes after significant incidents. Members of the Defense and Justice departments, several security agencies, and private sector specialists are on the board. Let’s see what turns it takes.
Stay tuned!!
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