An ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline networks prompted the United States to declare 17 states a state of emergency.
See more articles from iGuRu.gr when you search for news on Google.
The news comes as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed that a ransomware attack was responsible for shutting down one of the country's largest pipelines over the weekend. The attack forced Colonial Pipelien to shut down the 8.800-kilometer fuel pipeline that runs from Houston, Texas, to New York Harbor. Naturally, it caused panic and concerns about the vulnerability of America's energy infrastructure to cyberattacks.
The states and jurisdictions affected by the closed pipeline and included in the Emergency Declaration are Alabama, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
The issue is serious as these states are likely to run out of fossil fuels of all kinds, and cause problems in aviation, vehicle traffic, etc. They try to cover the burden of market supply with tankers.
Colonial Pipeline continues to work with cybersecurity, law enforcement, and other federal services to restore pipeline operations quickly and safely. The U.S. government said Monday that there was no evidence that Russia was involved in the ransomware attack.
The blackmailers, on the other hand, are a group called Darkside, and its leaders left a message saying: "We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics, you do not need to associate us with a specific government and look for other motives. Our goal is to make money and not create problems in society. ”
Darkside is a relatively new player in the ransomware game. However, it already has a good reputation in analyst circles as a professional and organized team. The team has a telephone number and a help desk to facilitate negotiations with its victims !!. They also seem to put a lot of effort into gathering information about their victims, not just technical information about their environment, but general information about the company itself, such as the size and estimated revenue of the organization.
DarkSide's motive is to issue corporate-style press releases to Tor to showcase professionalism in its criminal activities.
The Colonial Pipeline incident is the latest cyberattack to hit the US government in recent months, following the SolarWinds breaches by suspected Russian agents and the exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities by the Chinese.
Dimitris hates Mondays...
