On May 7 the Colonial Pipeline, which stretches from Texas to New York and is the largest pipeline system for refined oil products in the United States, was hit by a ransomware attack that resulted in the shutdown of most of the 5,500-mile pipeline.

The company is operating some parts of the pipeline manually and has sought the help of private cyber investigators and the US government. Meanwhile, a huge segment of the US’ critical infrastructure is disabled and Washington does not seem to have any answers.

We do not know what the hackers demanded from Colonial Pipeline or even who the hackers are.

Ransomware in its most basic form attacks a cyber network by encrypting everything and demanding ransom before the encryption can be removed. In the case of the Colonial Pipeline, we know that along with encrypting all the computers in the Colonial Pipeline network, the perpetrators also stole a vast amount of company data.  Read More