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Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack Rattles Power Industry, Renews Vulnerability Concerns
A ransomware incident on May 7 that prompted Colonial Pipeline Co., owner of the nation’s largest refined products pipeline, to proactively shut it down underscores the punch cyberthreats can pose to organizations, “regardless of size or sector,” the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has warned.
Five days after Colonial Pipeline first learned it was the victim of a cyberattack, the Alpharetta, Georgia-headquartered company continued to restore operations on the 5,500-mile pipeline, which transports more about 45% of all fuel consumed on the East Coast from refineries primarily in the Gulf Coast. The White House on Monday said the Biden administration was
Why the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack matters
A cyberattack on a critical U.S. pipeline is sending ripple effects across the economy, highlighting cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the nation’s aging energy infrastructure
By FRANK BAJAK AND CATHY BUSSEWITZAssociated Press
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NEW YORK A cyberattack on a critical U.S. pipeline is sending ripple effects across the economy, highlighting cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the nation’s aging energy infrastructure. The Colonial Pipeline, which delivers about 45% of the fuel used along the Eastern Seaboard, shut down Friday after a ransomware attack by gang of criminal hackers that calls itself DarkSide. Depending on how long the shutdown lasts, the incident could impact millions of consumers.
Colonial Pipeline said in a statement Saturday that it “proactively took certain systems offline to contain the threat, which has temporarily halted all pipeline operations, and affected some of our IT systems.” It’s working to get business back to normal.
The cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. said its Mandiant incident response division is assisting with the investigation. President Joe Biden, who’s spending the weekend at Camp David, was briefed on the incident Saturday morning, the White House said.
Colonial is a key artery for the eastern half of the U.S. It’s the main source of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for the East Coast with capacity of about 2.5 million barrels a day on its system from Houston as far as North Carolina, and another 900,000 barrels a day to New York.
Dive Brief:
As Michigan weighs the best policy to comply with a federal order encouraging more electricity storage development, utilities urged the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) to not allow electric storage resources to participate in the retail and wholesale markets simultaneously.
In comments filed with the MPSC, utilities DTE Energy and Consumers Energy Company each said that dual participation would cause confusion in the market and could allow some participants to avoid higher rates and shift costs onto customers. MPSC had sought comments on how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission s Order 841, an effort to lower barriers to electric storage resources (ESR) in wholesale power markets, should be implemented in the region.