Last Friday, a cyberattack prompted the shutdown of the biggest piece of energy infrastructure in the United States, the Colonial Pipeline system that supplies almost half of the gasoline and diesel that the East Coast consumes. The attack naturally led to higher gasoline prices and a run on gas as drivers worried about looming shortages while Colonial Pipeline Co. worked to restart the flow of fuels. Yet the higher prices at the pump and a possible shortage of fuel supplies are the smaller problem. It is, after all, temporary, and its effect will be transient. But there is a bigger problem, and it concerns the energy infrastructure of the United States: exactly how secure is it? As the attack suggests, not very. True, experts said early on that the group that carried out the attack was made up of seasoned hackers. Later, a ransomware group called DarkSide took responsibility […]

Posted in: USA