Lawmakers Grill Pentagon Officials on How to Prevent Another Colonial Pipeline-Style Attack May 18, 2021 6:39 PM NASA Photo Members of a key cyber panel wanted to know why the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t alerted to the ransomware attack that set off panic-buying of gasoline and whether the Pentagon could have taken measures to stop it before it happened. Sen. Joe Manchin, (D-W.Va.) said at Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services cyber subcommittee hearing that what happened when the Colonial Pipeline was shut down “was an attack to me” coming from outside the U.S. and had implications for the Pentagon.