Colonial Pipeline paid 75 Bitcoin, or roughly $5 million, to hackers.
The shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline triggered a cascading crisis that led to a jump in gas prices and panic buying at gas pumps.Credit.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock
May 13, 2021, 5:30 p.m. ET
Colonial Pipeline paid its extortionists roughly 75 Bitcoin, or nearly $5 million, to recover its stolen data, according to people briefed on the transaction.
The payment came after cybercriminals last week held up Colonial Pipeline’s business networks with ransomware, a form of malware that encrypts data until the victim pays, and threatened to release it online. Colonial Pipeline pre-emptively shut down its pipeline operations to keep the ransomware from spreading and because it had no way to bill customers with its business and accounting networks offline.
Officer Who Gave $25 to Kyle Rittenhouseâs Defense Loses Job
Lt. William Kelly of the Norfolk Police Department in Virginia was relieved of duty by city officials, who said his support for the Kenosha, Wis., shooting suspect undermined the publicâs trust in law enforcement.
Kyle Rittenhouse, left, during a demonstration in August in Kenosha, Wis., where, the authorities say, he killed two people.Credit.Adam Rogan/The Journal Times, via Associated Press
April 21, 2021
A police lieutenant in Virginia lost his job this week after he contributed $25 to a legal-defense fund and expressed praise for Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with killing two people last year during protests in Kenosha, Wis., officials said.
U.S. Imposes Stiff Sanctions on Russia, Blaming It for Major Hacking Operation
Following years of wrist slaps under President Donald J. Trump, the new measures are designed to have a noticeable impact on the Russian economy.
The Russian Central Bank headquarters in Moscow.Credit.Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
April 15, 2021Updated 11:11 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON The Biden administration on Thursday announced tough new sanctions on Russia and formally blamed the country’s premier intelligence agency for the sophisticated hacking operation that breached American government agencies and the nation’s largest companies.
In the broadest effort yet to give more teeth to financial sanctions which in the past have failed to deter Russian activity the actions are aimed at choking off lending to the Russian government.
Twitter Hacker Pleads Guilty in Florida Court
The 18-year-old is expected to serve three years in a juvenile facility in return for the plea.
Graham Ivan Clark pleaded guilty on Tuesday to hacking high-profile Twitter accounts.Credit.Glenn Chapman/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
March 16, 2021
The young hacker accused of being the mastermind behind a breach last year of high-profile Twitter accounts pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a Florida court, agreeing to serve three years in juvenile prison.
Graham Ivan Clark, 18, faced fraud charges after a hack that compromised Twitter accounts belonging to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, former President Barack Obama and other celebrities. Under Mr. Clark’s control, the accounts tweeted fraudulent messages soliciting Bitcoin, promising to double the money of anyone who sent cryptocurrency. The scheme netted Bitcoin worth more than $100,000 before it was shut down.
The Most Serious Security Risk Facing the United States
Credit.Yoshi Sodeoka
By Jonathan Tepperman
The Cyberweapons Arms Race
By Nicole Perlroth
Sometime last year, a shadowy group of hackers now thought to be Russians working for that country’s foreign intelligence service broke into digital systems run by Solar Winds, an American tech firm, and inserted malware into the code. When the company then sent out its next regular software update, it inadvertently spread the virus to its clients more than 18,000 of them, including huge corporations, the Pentagon, the State Department, Homeland Security, the Treasury and other government agencies. The hack went undetected for months, until the victims started discovering that enormous amounts of their data some of it very sensitive had been stolen.