Photo: Colonial Pipeline
A hacking group known as DarkSide and believed to be linked with Russia has managed to take a major U.S. fuel pipeline down the last weekend, causing major disruptions in several industries.
The hackers, who compromised the Colonial Pipeline computers with ransomware, forced the American company to shut down all operations on Friday. All of its four main lines were knocked offline following the cyberattack.
The FBI has already confirmed DarkSide is the group behind the attack, while the federal government has issued an emergency declaration on Sunday due to the disruptions caused by the transportation of oil in the eastern United States.
But earlier this week, the hackers explained that their intention wasn’t to create so many problems but to actually make some money. “Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society,” the hacking group said in a statement.
Still, taking offline the pipeline that carries no less than 2.5 million barrels a day has obviously created major problems for several industries, with airlines also struggling to cope with the lack of fuel.
As a result, several companies have added refueling stops for their long flights, with aircraft flying from Charlotte to Honolulu projected to stop in Dallas, while the flight going from Charlotte to London will stop in Boston. Most likely, several other airlines will add similar stops along their routes as the pipeline operations are yet to be completely restored, and it wouldn’t necessarily be a huge surprise to see some companies actually canceling flights altogether.
In a statement on Monday, Colonial said it was still working on restoring the operations, but not all systems are ready to go back online. The company, however, said it expected the network to be up and running later this week.
Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall said most of the computers had been taken offline out of an abundance of caution, as hackers only broke into systems managing the business operations of Colonial.
The FBI has already confirmed DarkSide is the group behind the attack, while the federal government has issued an emergency declaration on Sunday due to the disruptions caused by the transportation of oil in the eastern United States.
But earlier this week, the hackers explained that their intention wasn’t to create so many problems but to actually make some money. “Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society,” the hacking group said in a statement.
Still, taking offline the pipeline that carries no less than 2.5 million barrels a day has obviously created major problems for several industries, with airlines also struggling to cope with the lack of fuel.
As a result, several companies have added refueling stops for their long flights, with aircraft flying from Charlotte to Honolulu projected to stop in Dallas, while the flight going from Charlotte to London will stop in Boston. Most likely, several other airlines will add similar stops along their routes as the pipeline operations are yet to be completely restored, and it wouldn’t necessarily be a huge surprise to see some companies actually canceling flights altogether.
In a statement on Monday, Colonial said it was still working on restoring the operations, but not all systems are ready to go back online. The company, however, said it expected the network to be up and running later this week.
Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall said most of the computers had been taken offline out of an abundance of caution, as hackers only broke into systems managing the business operations of Colonial.
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