NorthAmOil: Cyberattack knocks out Colonial Pipeline

A ransomware cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline has been described as one of the most disruptive digital ransom schemes ever reported.
The 5,500-mile (8,850-km) pipeline, which carries nearly half the fuel consumed along the US East Coast, was forced by the attack to go offline on May 7. As of May 11, a restart was still thought to be days away, with Colonial Pipeline aiming to “substantially” restore operational service by the end of the week.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has accused a criminal gang called DarkSide of carrying out the ransomware attack. Cyber experts believe that DarkSide is based in Russia or Eastern Europe. However, US President Joe Biden said on May 10 that he did not believe Russia’s government had sponsored the attack, as no evidence of Russian involvement had yet been found by his country’s intelligence services.
While the impact remains to be fully quantified, the Colonial Pipeline shutdown is expected to reduce fuel availability in the near term, push up prices and force refiners to cut production because they have no way to ship gasoline.
The outage has led to calls for a greater focus on the security of US energy infrastructure.
“While the short-term risk is being played down, the market is still visibly shaken by the event, given the nature of the attack and the scale of the infrastructure,” Rystad Energy oil markets analyst Louise Dickson said in a note. “Although this is not reflecting in prices, the market is now concerned about the likelihood of such an event being repeated and about the severity of future attacks.”