"VE HAF WAYS TO PUNISH YOU..."
Posted on 05/08/2021 7:17:53 AM PDT by george76
A cyberattack forced the shutdown of one of the largest pipelines in the United States, in what appeared to be a significant attempt to disrupt vulnerable energy infrastructure. The pipeline carries refined gasoline and jet fuel up the East Coast from Texas to New York.
The operator of the system, Colonial Pipeline, said in a statement late Friday that it had shut down its 5,500 miles of pipeline, which it says carries 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel supplies, in an effort to contain the attack on its computer networks. Earlier Friday, there were disruptions along the pipeline, but it was unclear whether that was a direct result of the attack.
Colonial’s pipeline transports 2.5 million barrels each day, taking refined gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel from the Gulf Coast up to New York Harbor and New York’s major airports. Most of that goes into major storage tanks, and with energy use depressed by the pandemic, the attack was unlikely to cause any immediate disruptions.
In the statement, the company said that it learned on Friday that it “was the victim of a cybersecurity attack,” but it provided no details. Such an attack could involve malware that shut down its operations or ransomware demanding payment to unlock computer files or systems.
“In response, we proactively took certain systems offline to contain the threat, which has temporarily halted all pipeline operations, and affected some of our I.T. operations,” the company said, referring to information technology systems.
It said it had contacted law enforcement and other federal agencies. The F.B.I. leads such investigations, but critical infrastructure is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The breach comes just months after two major attacks on American computer networks — the SolarWinds intrusion by Russia’s main intelligence service, and another against a Microsoft email service that has been attributed to Chinese hackers — that have illustrated the vulnerability of the networks on which the government and corporations rely.
While both of those attacks appeared aimed, at least initially, on the theft of emails and other data, the nature of the intrusions created “back doors” that experts say could ultimately enable attacks on physical infrastructure. So far, neither effort is thought to have led to anything other than data theft.
The Biden administration announced sanctions against Russia last month for SolarWinds, and is expected to issue an executive order in the coming days that would take steps to secure critical infrastructure, including requiring enhanced security for vendors providing services to the federal government.
The United States has long warned that Russia has implanted malicious code in the electric utility networks, and the United States responded several years ago by putting similar code into the Russian grid.
But actual attacks on energy systems are rare. About a decade ago, Iran was blamed for an attack on the computer systems of Saudi Aramco, one of the world’s largest producers, which destroyed 30,000 computers. That attack, which appeared to be in response to the American-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, did not affect operations.
Another attack on a Saudi petrochemical plant in 2017 nearly set off a major industrial disaster. But it was shut down quickly, and investigators later attributed it to Russian hackers. This year, someone briefly took over control of a water treatment plan in a small Florida city, in what appeared to be an effort to poison the supply, but the attempt was quickly halted.
The post Cyberattack Forces a Shutdown of a Top U.S. Pipeline Operator appeared first on New York Times.
“EVERYTHING should be MECHANICAL ONLY, HARDWIRED ONLY, ETC.!!!!!”
What are you, some kind of neanderthal? We need SOFTWARE, I tell you SOFTWARE, because that is the future.
Anyway, I’m against mechanical control because it prevents the Chinese from destroying this country (liberal thinking).
My money's on American enviro-wackos working at the behest of their Chinese puppet masters
I knew it was something like that, so it was more if a rhetorical question.
Basically, because people can’t be bothered to go to the office any more.
Thanks again to the demented old puppet and his cohorts in the democRAT party that put him in power. We are leaderless!
Won’t this help meet our emissions reduction efforts for the Paris Climate Accords? /s
Cost savings, purported production efficiencies, "real time" environmental monitoring, etc.... There is one Fortune 500 midstream (ie. pipeline) company my firm has worked with who has touted for years their investments in technology to operate their network from literally anywhere. When Covid broke out they were very proud of the fact that managers "could run the entire system from their bedrooms." Not saying I agree with it, but they even put it at the beginning of their annual reports. From their own investment literature and 10K reports:
digital transformation increasing cash flow while minimizing risk via real-time optimization & decision making. XXX Technology Ventures evaluating emerging technologies to improve sustainability and drive efficiencies
All this means is that hacking and internet security will be even more critical to US infrastructure in the future
"VE HAF WAYS TO PUNISH YOU..."
The people don’t want that evil stuff anyway. Time to learn what it’s like without it.
“Great....gasoline prices are sure to jump overnight and stay there weeks after the problem is fixed.”
Just when I thought my energy stocks couldn’t go much higher...
In demographic terms, your state is being run by the neo-Marxist dump of Seattle, so banning wood stoves is no surprise.
LOL! I can walk to the grocery store.
Oh, wait, the trucks won’t be running, either. :-(
When the grocery trucks can’t gas up, it’s good to have extra food in the house.
PING!
I can hear the champagne corks popping all across D.C.
Thanks. I appreciate your wishes for $4/gal. gas.
Exactly.
Tell me there is no war.
Ummm, let's hope 'work arounds' have been created.... Same with the pipeline folks. They can't function in this world under the assumption that cyber attacks won't happen to them. This will become the new norm.
Blame execs who want to control and monitor things remotely. I’ve seen HVAC in schools connected to the internet for troubleshooting.
Source : DNyuz - Media Bias Fact Check
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/dnyuz/
"DNyuz is an Armenian website that plagiarizes content word for word from major news sources.
They literally copy and paste entire articles and embed their advertising code for profit."
Its not supposed to be
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