Gasoline shortages continue to plague much of the East Coast of the United States, with most gas stations in the federal capital, Washington, DC, unable to purchase fuel. The American press reported.
Thousands of service stations in southern and eastern member states are still not receiving adequate supplies The fuel line for the Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline Company had to be shut down due to a cyberattack 10 days ago. Although the company restarted its fuel pipeline network a few days ago, the supply remains unsatisfactory. The colonial pipeline provided 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel needs.
Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy, a Boston-based fuel pricing company, told Fox News that By Sunday evening, there were about 12,466 filling stations where fuel could not be taken. But data from Haan’s Twitter also revealed that nearly 90 percent of gas stations in the federal capital were empty.
Nearly 60 percent of gas stations in North Carolina and about half of gas stations in South Carolina had no fuel late Sunday night. In Georgia, 43% of gas stations have run out of fuel.
The colonial pipeline provided nearly 9,000 kilometers of petrol, diesel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products on the nearly 9,000-kilometer pipeline network, linking refineries along the Gulf Coast to southern and eastern coastal states. The company shut down its network on May 7 after learning of the cyber attack. As a result, the fuel delivery across the network has been shut down, and the company’s IT system has been partially shut down.
According to press reports Colonial Pipeline’s streak paid hackers nearly $ 5 million in ransom within hours of the attack, in so-called hard-to-track cryptocurrency. According to news agency sources, the Georgian company wanted to do everything in its power to refuel major cities along the east coast.
After receiving the payment, the hackers sent a so-called decryption tool to the company to open the locks. However, this tool was so slow that the company continued to use its backups to restore the system.
According to information from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a professional cybercrime group, DarkSide, may be behind the incident. DarkSide regularly carries out viral extortion attacks and is believed to be based in Russia or Eastern Europe. Extortion viruses lock and encrypt the chosen victim’s computer system and demand money so that their owners can regain control over IT systems, computers, and networks.
Last Thursday, US President Joe Biden confirmed information from the FBI that the cybercriminals who launch a cyber attack on the American company are in Russia, but as the president indicated, the Russian government is not involved in the case. “We do not believe that the Russian government is involved in this attack,” he added. “But we have good reason to believe that the criminals who committed the attack live in Russia,” Biden said.
Joe Biden signed a decree Wednesday to boost federal cyber defense capabilities as well as digital security in the private sector. Based on this, an organization will be created to investigate major hacker attacks and set new standards for software used by government agencies. Among other things, it makes two-step authentication mandatory, which makes it difficult to hack various user accounts.
