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United States Power

Pipeline Attacked by Ransomware Has Now Resumed Normal Operations (go.com) 31

Posted by EditorDavid from the still-pumping dept.
Though halted last week by ransomware, America's largest gasoline pipeline announced Saturday that it's resumed normal operations, reports the Associated Press, "delivering fuel to its markets, including a large swath of the East Coast." Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline had begun the process of restarting the pipeline's operations on Wednesday evening, warning it could take several days for the supply chain to return to normal.

"Since that time, we have returned the system to normal operations, delivering millions of gallons per hour to the markets we serve," Colonial Pipeline said in a tweet Saturday. Those markets include Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
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Pipeline Attacked by Ransomware Has Now Resumed Normal Operations More

Pipeline Attacked by Ransomware Has Now Resumed Normal Operations

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  • the new normal (Score:5, Funny)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @04:43PM (#61388424) Homepage Journal

    Even though I no longer have to fill plastic totes with gasoline, I've gotten so used to doing it that it's become the new normal.

    • Here in Florida, every hurricane season they have to tell people not to pump gas into Home Depot buckets. Aside from the fact that it’s illegal and probably unsafe due to the fumes, I don’t see why it wouldn’t technically work. The buckets are made from HDPE, which is the same material plastic gas cans are made from.

      • Because the kind of idiots who do that also tend to be smoking cigarettes or vaping at the same time.

      • Re:the new normal (Score:4, Informative)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot.worf@net> on Sunday May 16, 2021 @03:24AM (#61389608)

        Here in Florida, every hurricane season they have to tell people not to pump gas into Home Depot buckets. Aside from the fact that itâ(TM)s illegal and probably unsafe due to the fumes, I donâ(TM)t see why it wouldnâ(TM)t technically work. The buckets are made from HDPE, which is the same material plastic gas cans are made from.

        It's not the bucket. Heck, there's less worry about gas in plastic bags degrading the bags. It's more about the fumes - there's a reason why gas cans have very tightly sealed lids.

        Gas fumes have a nasty habit of evaporating to the point of being combustible very quickly, and it just takes a little spark to ignite it.

        Just think of it this way - the car next to you could suddenly explode. If it happened on an empty road, no harm done, only the idiot dies. But if it happens on a busy highway, now you have car parts and shrapnel flying in all directions into traffic. Besides direct injuries, you get people who react unpredicably and now you've got secondary accidents happening.

        Degradation of the container is the least of the problems of transporting. It's a concern using plastic bags, but it's the fact there's not a strong seal so evaporation will quickly bring the environment in the car to a explosive level. One small spark, and kaboom, you have a mobile car bomb.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Don't skimp. Make sure you double bag [youtube.com] that gasoline.

    • Buy a Tesla.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Revek ( 133289 )
      Just soak your toilet paper in it and light the grill with it all.

  • The bad news is that Colonial paid $5 mil (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @05:01PM (#61388476)

    Every ransomware story that ends with a ransom makes the next ten more likely to happen.

    Now that cryptocurrencies make secure money drops possible, watch for a revival of kidnappings. Yes, abduction of people. By inaction we asked for it.

    • Now that cryptocurrencies make secure money drops possible, watch for a revival of kidnappings. Yes, abduction of people.

      I doubt kidnapping is nearly as profitable, and it requires local thugs to perform the actual kidnapping. Ransomware doesn’t require any actual hands-on criminal activity. The criminals can be safely in Russia or wherever.

    • Every ransomware story that ends with a ransom makes the next ten more likely to happen

      It should be made a criminal offense to pay ransomware perpetrators. Given that many of the perpetrators are directly state actors, or even essentially modern day privateers tacitly licensed by state actors, paying them is essentially treasonous and should be treated as such.

      Also, there should be a spate of outright firings. I can understand being hit by a ransomware attack. There are many vectors to being hit by one, and many of those vectors are human. You can't close them all 100% of the time. So when a person or organization is hit by one, I tend to be understanding. What I don't understand, and have no tolerance for, is being hurt by one.

      Ransomware attacks should be nothing more than an exercise in what to do if your hard drive crashes. Any person or organization that is hurt by a ransomware attack is showing they have a total disregard for proper backup strategies. If they are performing daily backups with weekly archives, then getting hit by a ransomware attack should pose no more difficulty than restoring from the most recent image that predates the attack. Proper backups should have been being performed anyway.

      So, yes. Every ransomware story that ends with a ransom ought to be treated as aiding and abetting the enemy. When you first get hit by one you are the victim of a crime. That ends when you pay. When you pay them you become an accessory after the fact and guilty of conspiracy towards the next one. People who pay them need to be treated as the criminals they are.

      • Need points to vote for this... anyone?
      • Itâ(TM)s illegal to bribe anyone anywhere, so this is not a big stretch.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swm ( 171547 )

        It should be made a criminal offense to pay ransomware perpetrators.

        Maybe a first step would be to disallow insurance policies to cover ransomware payments.

      • You're absolutely right! Paying ransom should be a crime with severe and swift punishment.

        My hope is that the next group hit by Darkside turns around and sues Colonial Pipeline into oblivion for being an accessory to extortion. Then maybe Congress will make it against the law to pay ransom.

        • Darkside outsources their ransom software to 3rd parties, and they outsource collection, to collection specialists, possibly several. As bitcoin payments can be traced (yes they can) and exchanges would have been warned the time and amount of the payment in advance, it is highly probable the US enforcement knows where the money landed, and hoping they can upstream distributions to the ring leaders, while keeping tabs on the small fish. The good news is that they are targeting America hard, because in many c
      • A company that pays a ransom has no credibility. Elsewhere in the world, major companies lie and cover up breaches, downplay, mislead, anything, because there is no upside.What needs to happen is all executive bonuses have to be returned, if the company failed to meet timely computer intrusion reports, and all bribes not covered by insurance, but taken at 10 times the rate out of corporate bonuses, and 40 times, where breaches were not reported. There is no mandatory per customer compensation. That needs to

  • It's ironic that the shutdown wasn't a direct result of the ransomware attack. Colonial Pipeline purposely shut down their pipeline because the billing server on their IT network was compromised and they were worried that they would not be able to correctly bill customers after the fact. Their pipeline operations network was not affected.

    "Infrastructure is a national security issue" but a private company shut down the national fuel supply to the southeast not because of any potential physical danger but be

  • Or is "normal" creeping up to the new ransomware price?

  • What ever you do, don't mention the Microsoft desktop operating system this malware runs on!

  • Have they turned off the Bluetooth?

  • 100 million average daily gallons (says wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org])
    at 19.6 pounds CO2 per gallon (says https://www.eia.gov/environmen... [eia.gov]).

    That like 889,000 metric tons of CO2 a day, right?

  • It would have been funny if the company gave the hackers the money and the hackers told them to get fucked.

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