‘Most Significant And Successful Attack On Energy Infrastructure … In The United States’: Cyberattack Hits Colonial Pipeline

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Hank Berrien - The Daily Wire


https://i.imgur.com/k2iumLAl.jpg

In what was called “the most significant and successful attack on energy infrastructure we know of in the United States, a cyberattack was launched on the largest refined products pipeline in the United States, the Colonial Pipeline, on Friday, and if the subsequent outage is not corrected within days, the eastern half of the United States, which reportedly receives 45% of fuel from the pipeline, could see a surge in gas, oil, and diesel prices.

One expert told Politico the ransomware attack was “the most significant and successful attack on energy infrastructure we know of in the United States.” Politico reported, “The attack on the Colonial Pipeline, which runs 5,500 miles and provides nearly half the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel used on the East Coast, most immediately affected some of the company’s business-side computer systems — not the systems that directly run the pipelines themselves. The Georgia-based company said it shut down the pipelines as a precaution and has engaged a third-party cybersecurity firm to investigate the incident.”

“Administration officials said they believed the attack was the act of a criminal group, rather than a nation seeking to disrupt critical infrastructure in the United States. But at times, such groups have had loose affiliations with foreign intelligence agencies and have operated on their behalf,” The New York Times reported.

Mike Chapple from University of Notre Dame´s Mendoza College of Business, a former computer scientist with the National Security Agency, said, “The attacks were extremely sophisticated and they were able to defeat some pretty sophisticated security controls, or the right degree of security controls weren´t in place,” the Daily Mail reported.

Oil analyst Andy Lipow said if the shutdown lasted five or six days, price hikes would result, most notably affecting the supply of jet fuel major airports needed to operate.

Rob Lee of the cybersecurity firm Drago noted that if the attack only affected Colonial’s business computer systems, “I think it’s going to be relatively short-lived.”

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at Gas Buddy, told Newsweek, “The challenges brought on by the Colonial Pipeline shut down would likely not appear for several days or longer. My guess is they’ll be able to restart the pipeline before any major issues develop. This should NOT be a pricing event- but this may be a supply event. By ‘pricing event’ I meant not one motorists will generally ‘see’ that is, not an overnight spike.”

“Colonial Pipeline announced Saturday morning that it’s working to restore operations and hired a third-party cybersecurity firm to investigate the targeted ransomware attack,” Newsweek added.

“The private cybersecurity firm FireEye said it’s been hired to manage the incident response investigation,” the Star Tribune reported.

On Saturday. Colonial issued a statement saying that the “incident involves ransomware,” “Colonial Pipeline is taking steps to understand and resolve the issue. Our primary focus is the safe and efficient restoration of our service and our efforts to return to normal operation.”

[FBD]

Perhaps I should have put the vid of ol Klaus in this thread instead of the crypto thread :x

Every bit as planned as the ronas, fellas. There will be more.

https://i.imgur.com/PnABnLp.png

There's "the russians" again :roll:

(And the guy who made the garbage OS responsible for this shit wants you all to take his vaccine like yesterday, nothing suspect at all going on, shit)

right on schedule :razz:

https://i.imgur.com/WpbuDQw.jpg

[FBD]

https://weather.com/news/news/2021-03-08-north-carolina-gasoline-spill-colonial-pipeline-oehler-nature-preserve

Pipeline has been leaking gas for over 8 months

[deebakes]

thanks obama

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Brooke Singman | FOXBusiness


The FBI said Monday that the ransomware gang known as "Darkside" was the group responsible for the attack over the weekend that forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline networks responsible for carrying gasoline from Texas to the Northeast.

"The FBI confirms that the Darkside ransomware is responsible for the compromise of the Colonial Pipeline networks," the FBI said in a statement Monday. "We continue to work with the company and our government partners on the investigation."
1391783864016703493
A senior Department of Justice source told FOX Business that the investigation into the attack is ongoing due to the involvement of ransomware, labeling the sophistication of the tools involved "very high."

Darkside announced its existence in August 2020, and claims it does not attack medical, educational or government targets – only large corporations – and that it donates a portion of what it takes to charity.

The group will harvest data from a victim’s server, then encrypt it and request a ransom. The group then will upload the data to a leak website on the dark web, which will publish should it not receive the ransom, risking sensitive data loss for any victim organization.

Darkside has advertised stolen documents from more than 80 companies across the U.S. and Europe on its website.

Colonial Pipeline, in a statement Monday, said they are dedicating resources to "restoring pipeline operations quickly and safely."

"Segments of our pipeline are being brought back online in a stepwise fashion, in compliance with relevant federal regulations and in close consultation with the Department of Energy, which is leading and coordinating the Federal Government’s response," the company said.

The company added that its operations team is "executing a plan that involves an incremental process that will facilitate a return to service in a phased approach"— a plan based on "a number of factors with safety and compliance driving our operational decisions, and the goal of substantially restoring operational service by the end of the week."

"We continue to evaluate product inventory in storage tanks at our facilities and others along our system and are working with our shippers to move this product to terminals for local delivery," Colonial continued. "Actions taken by the Federal Government to issue a temporary hours of service exemption for motor carriers and drivers transporting refined products across Colonial’s footprint should help alleviate local supply disruptions and we thank our government partners for their assistance in resolving this matter."

Fox News' Jake Gibson, David Spunt, Mark Meredith, Peter Aitken and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[FBD]

when they have to meme attacks on the country and use the same verbiage in both

https://i.imgur.com/M0gQTX1.png

[FBD]

https://twitter.com/politico/status/1391954977459949572

[perrhaps]

Can anyone here explain and/or justify why gas stations here in PA raised their prices yesterday for the gas already in their storage tanks?

[DemonGeminiX]

Can anyone here explain and/or justify why gas stations here in PA raised their prices yesterday for the gas already in their storage tanks?

Gouging?

[FBD]

Can anyone here explain and/or justify why gas stations here in PA raised their prices yesterday for the gas already in their storage tanks?

rape

[PorkChopSandwiches]

They must plan for the upcoming shortage by charging more now :lol:

[Pony]

Yep, they ALWAYS preemptively raise prices but take their sweet time to lower them. A few days early and a couple days late makes for billions of dollars in profit.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Can anyone here explain and/or justify why gas stations here in PA raised their prices yesterday for the gas already in their storage tanks?


Gouging?


rape


They must plan for the upcoming shortage by charging more now :lol:


Yep, they ALWAYS preemptively raise prices but take their sweet time to lower them. A few days early and a couple days late makes for billions of dollars in profit.

Yup, it's the same with every 'crisis' with the gas prices. Whether it's now with the pipeline issues, or an impending hurricane in the Gulf, or someone sneezes in the Middle East, the very first thing that happens is they jack up the gas prices, even though there are already millions of gallons of refined gasoline in storage facilities that aren't affected by any of it. And like Pony said, the prices will jump in a hurry....up 25 cents one day then another 10 cents the next and another 18 cents the day after that. But when prices start to go down, it always seems like it's never more than 1 or 2 cents at a time, and usually it takes several days for it to go down just 2 cents.

[FBD]

I'd like to go back in history and kill JP Morgan just after he funds Tesla's experiments, but before he pulls the plug. I'd be sure to torture him medieval style for what's taken place in this timeline.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

by Nihal Krishan - Washington Examiner


https://i.imgur.com/3FW4lVJ.jpg

Colonial Pipeline reportedly paid almost $5 million to the hackers responsible for the cyberattack that forced the shutdown of its gas infrastructure.

Colonial Pipeline paid the ransom amount using cryptocurrency within hours of the attack, highlighting the pressure the company faced to get gas flowing again to customers on the East Coast, according to Bloomberg.

This contradicts reports from earlier this week that the company had no plans of paying a fee to decrypt important data files and help get the gas pipeline up and running again.

After receiving the ransom amount, the hackers gave Colonial Pipeline a decrypting tool to get access to its data again and restore the broken network. However, the hackers' tool was so slow and ineffective that the company used its own data backups to help bring the system back to life, Bloomberg reported.

The FBI confirmed on Monday that DarkSide ransomware was responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack. DarkSide is a group of organized hackers selling software hacking tools to other criminals to carry out attacks on wealthy organizations and entities, according to the cybersecurity firm Cybereason.

The FBI discourages companies from paying ransom to hackers.

“Paying a ransom doesn’t guarantee you or your organization will get any data back. It also encourages perpetrators to target more victims and offers an incentive for others to get involved in this type of illegal activity,” the FBI says in its guidance.

The Colonial Pipeline is the largest gas pipeline in the country, with 5,500 miles of pipeline from Texas to New Jersey, and delivers 45% of the fuel for the East Coast.

The company announced it restarted operations on Wednesday, but the cyberattack has already caused severe gas shortages in the South for multiple days this week.

[FBD]

>they pay the ransom
>they wind up taking a course of action that did not necessitate paying the ransom

:facepalm:

who in the fuck made the call to pay the ransom instead of loading things from backup, and who does he know in the "hacker group"

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Charlotte Pence Bond - The Daily Wire


Government officials announced Monday that they have acquired some of the ransom payment given to hackers after the recent shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline caused massive fuel shortages across the country.

The task to retrieve the cryptocurrency from the Eastern European hacker group, DarkSide, is the first one carried out by a specialized ransomware task force formed by the Biden administration Justice Department, per The Associated Press.

“By going after an entire ecosystem that fuels ransomware and digital currency, we will continue to use all of our tools and all of our resources to increase the costs and the consequences of ransomware attacks and other cyber-enabled attacks,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Monday at a news conference.

“Following the money remains one of the most basic, yet powerful, tools we have,” Monaco said, per CNN. “Ransom payments are the fuel that propels the digital extortion engine, and today’s announcement demonstrates that the United States will use all available tools to make these attacks more costly and less profitable for criminal enterprises.”

“The seizure warrant was authorized through the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California,” CNN noted.

The Justice Department said that it recovered around $2.3 million in Bitcoins paid to DarkSide. Colonial Pipeline officials have said that they paid approximately $4.4 million in ransom.

“The extortionists will never see this money,” acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds for the Northern District of California said at the news conference. “New financial technologies that attempt to anonymize payments will not provide a curtain from behind which criminals will be permitted to pick the pockets of hardworking Americans.”

Last month, Colonial Pipeline Co. CEO Joseph Blount said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that “he authorized the ransom payment of $4.4 million because executives were unsure how badly the cyberattack had breached its systems, and consequently, how long it would take to bring the pipeline back.”

The company had informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the hack and followed directions that assisted authorities in locating the payment, as reported by CNN.

As The Daily Wire reported on May 12, a “cyber attack forced the closure of the 5,500-mile pipeline, which moves more than 100 million gallons of fuel from Texas to New Jersey every day — nearly 50% of the fuel consumed on the East Coast.”

“The Biden administration had, at one point, suggested that Colonial Pipeline pay a ransom to the cyberattackers, but Wednesday afternoon, the president admitted that the White House had been in contact with Colonial and was working on the problem, according to USA Today,” The Daily Wire reported.

Last week, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki appeared to mock a reporter who asked about the increase in hacking that has taken place in recent months.

“… [T]hese hackers based in Russia have disrupted American gas supplies and American meat supplies,” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy said. “Why do you think that these ransomware attacks have been rising since President Biden took office?”

“Well, first, I would say these are private sector entities who have a responsibility to put in place measures to protect their own cybersecurity,” Psaki said. “As it relates to why criminal actors are taking actions against private sector entities, I don’t think I’m the right one to speak to that.”

“So, a total coincidence?” Doocy asked.

“I think you could certainly go track down those cyber criminals in Russia and have a good chat with them,” Psaki responded.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Nice of them to leave out how they were able to get a hold of the crypto

[FBD]

Nice of them to leave out how they were able to get a hold of the crypto

you must secretly want its value to go back to 2014? :dance: :lol:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

LOL, sounds like some fuckery to me

[Godfather]

Nice of them to leave out how they were able to get a hold of the crypto

Curious about that too.

We sell a cyber insurance product at work for small businesses through a specialty third party carrier in London. Those guys are smart, it's a complex coverage and includes a limit for cyber extortion. If you're extorted, they have specialists step in to negotiate the price down and make the payment to save your devices/data/network (or whatever is being held hostage). Next time I talk to them, I'm going to see what their theories are.

[FBD]

just because its decentralized doesnt mean they cant alter the blockchain in some fashion

seizing is effectively doing this, unless there is a cooperating entity with their hands on relevant things

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Here's an article with a little more information:


Feds recover millions from pipeline ransom hackers, hint at U.S. internet tactic
By Kevin Collier and Pete Williams - NBC News


The United States has recovered much of the ransom payment the Russian hacker group DarkSide extorted from Colonial Pipeline this year, the Justice Department said Monday.

The announcement details a rare disruption of the cryptocurrency payment systems favored by hackers that have enabled ransomware efforts around the world.

The FBI was able to seize control of DarkSide's proceeds by gaining access to a central account holding about 63.7 bitcoins, worth around $2.3 million, Deputy Director Paul Abbate said. A court document said that the seizure took place in Northern California, putting it within reach of U.S. law, and that the FBI was able to access the "private key," or password, for one of the gang's bitcoin wallets. It was unclear how the key was compromised.

Elvis Chan, an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's San Francisco office, said in a news call Monday that the funds were specifically seized from hacker subcontractors who had used the DarkSide ransomware to hack Colonial.

He declined to give specifics of how the FBI was able to gain access to the wallet, but he said it did not rely on waiting for criminals to use U.S. cryptocurrency services. It did, however, rely on the fact that so much internet infrastructure is based in the U.S., where the FBI can get warrants.

"I don't want to give up our tradecraft in case we want to use this again for future endeavors," he said.

DarkSide hacked into Colonial in May as part of a monthslong crime spree, leading the company to shut down operations. The group demanded $4.4 million in ransom, which the company quickly paid. DarkSide's decryptor program was so slow that Colonial ended up not using it and instead restored its system from old backup files.

The pipeline's systems came back online five days after the hack.

"Today, we turned the tables on DarkSide," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at a news conference.

"Ransomware attacks are always unacceptable, but when they target critical infrastructure, we will spare no effort in our response," she said.

Ransomware gangs have been responsible for more than 1,000 hacks worldwide this year, mostly in the U.S., according to figures prepared for NBC News by Allan Liska, an analyst at the cybersecurity company Recorded Future.

"Overseas is not an issue for this technique," Chan said.

Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center, which tracks ransomware groups, aided the investigation, Chan said.

The Colonial hack was the first to have a direct effect on everyday American life; most attacks are on smaller targets. The threat of a major pipeline shutdown led the U.S. to issue an emergency order for truckers to work overtime delivering fuel, and some gas stations reported shortages as drivers rushed to the pumps.

Colonial CEO Joseph Blount, who oversaw the company's response, praised the FBI in a statement for its "swift work and professionalism in responding to this event."

"Holding cyber criminals accountable and disrupting the ecosystem that allows them to operate is the best way to deter and defend against future attacks of this nature," he said.

Jen Ellis, a co-author of a landmark Ransomware Task Force report studying how to slow the pace of ransomware attacks, welcomed the Justice Department's announcement as "fantastic news."

"This kind of collaboration between victims and law enforcement is exactly what we need to see," she said.

"Hopefully, if we see actions like this continue, it will encourage other victims to disclose attacks to law enforcement and also make it harder for ransomware attackers to realize a payday," Ellis said.

The recovered payment announced Monday is still a small fraction of the $90 million that DarkSide has been able to steal since it became active around October, Tom Robinson, CEO of Elliptic, a British company that tracks bitcoin payments, said in an email.

[FBD]

https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/colonial-pipeline-hack-russians-fbis-ransom-grab-what-really-happened


We were told this much-hyped hacking group of alleged Russians posed a serious threat to our entire critical infrastructure, yet in the same breath happened to have committed a laughably amateurish bitcoin custody faux pas that allowed for the feds to easily take back possession of the affiliate funds.

:ok:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

The FBI was able to seize control of DarkSide's proceeds by gaining access to a central account holding about 63.7 bitcoins, worth around $2.3 million, Deputy Director Paul Abbate said. A court document said that the seizure took place in Northern California, putting it within reach of U.S. law, and that the FBI was able to access the "private key," or password, for one of the gang's bitcoin wallets. It was unclear how the key was compromised.



He declined to give specifics of how the FBI was able to gain access to the wallet, but he said it did not rely on waiting for criminals to use U.S. cryptocurrency services. It did, however, rely on the fact that so much internet infrastructure is based in the U.S., where the FBI can get warrants.

"I don't want to give up our tradecraft in case we want to use this again for future endeavors," he said.


Fuckery

[Godfather]

That's some fuckery and a wakeup call for anyone who thinks crypto is 100% anonymous, but I guess we shouldn't even be surprised at the reach of the FBI and similar groups.

[FBD]

Exactly, wait until they can no longer hold back the info that the election was fraudulent, you can expect cyber pandemic 201 that the WEF already talked about and large swaths of the internet will fuggin go down at that point