Cyberattack closes the largest US oil pipeline

The largest fuel pipeline in the United States in general was closed on Friday after its operator detected and tried to oppose a cyber attack on its systems. The 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, which is the largest oil pipeline for fine products in the United States, has shut down due to some security systems going offline putting the operation of the Infrastructure at risk.This happened on Friday. , but on Saturday morning the facility was not yet functional.

Colonial's network is responsible for supplying fuel from Gulf Coast refineries to most of the eastern and southern United States, accounting for more than 2.5 million barrels per day of gasoline, diesel, and aircraft fuel or other refined products transferred. , for a total of 45% of the entire east coast fuel supply. It stretches from Texas through the southern states and into New Jersey.

“Right now, our primary focus is on the safe and efficient restoration of our service and our efforts to return to normal operation,” said the company based in Alpharetta, Georgia. "This process is already underway and we are working diligently to address the issue and minimize inconvenience to our customers."

The outage earlier in the day on Friday saw Gulf Coast cash prices for gasoline and diesel drop, although the long-term price effects will depend on how long the lines remain closed. If the closure persists over the weekend or even early next week, gasoline prices are very likely to soar in areas where fuel is consumed, and plummet where it is produced.

The last time a significant shutdown of the Colonial lines occurred was during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which brought gasoline prices on the Gulf Coast to a maximum of five years and diesel to a maximum of four. years.

This new cyber attack on vital American infrastructure has reportedly already involved federal and law enforcement agencies, along with a third-party cybersecurity company involved by Colonial to launch an investigation. Some of the early details of the investigation suggest a "Ransomware" attack, but it is not clear or certain whether this attack was also supported by a foreign government.

The Biden administration would like to launch a major program to improve the electronic security of US facilities, due after years of neglect, but has also accused foreign states, Russia in testing, of these attacks. Sanctions were issued on April 15 due to the Solarwind hack, which the US administration blamed on Russian entities. However, often these hacks, as also recognized by Wired , are the work of simple gifted individuals who exploit the weaknesses of antiquated and unsophisticated systems.

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The article Cyberattack closes the largest US oil pipeline comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/cyberattacco-fa-chiudere-il-piu-gande-oleodotto-usa/ on Sat, 08 May 2021 17:32:37 +0000.