Oil supply has been disrupted after cyber attack on America’s ‘Colonial Pipeline’ system.
Colonial Pipeline Company (AFP)
A major pipeline operator in the US was forced to shut down its entire network after a cyber attack on Pipeline Operator. The company confirmed the involvement of Ransomware on Saturday. The Colonial Pipeline said in a statement that the company had a cyber security attack. It said that in response to this, we made some systems offline to control the threat. This temporarily halted all pipeline operations and affected some of our IT systems. The United States has always been responsible for such attacks.
The Colonial Pipeline issued a statement for the second time on Saturday, confirming the involvement of ransomware in this incident. Ransomware is the type of malware that encrypts data and locks the system. At the same time, it demands payment for access to the data again. In the last five years, this malware has gained rapid popularity. The Colonial Network supplies oil from the American refinery to the eastern and southern densely populated areas of the country. The company transports 2.5 million barrels of petrol, diesel, jet fuel and other refined products every day. Now its supply has been interrupted. Its pipeline network is spread over 8,850 km.
Pipeline system is not completely safe
The company says that it alone transports 45 percent of the demand for areas located on the east coast of America. Mike Chappell, a professor at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame and computer scientist at the US National Security Agency, said the attack shook the system controlling the pipeline’s infrastructure. This shows that this attack must have been done in a very complicated way or the pipeline system is not completely safe. He said, with the closure of this pipeline, the message is that the basic elements of our national infrastructure can easily come under the grip of cyber attack.
Two cyber attacks on America before
The ‘Colonial Pipeline’ said that it has hired a private security firm to investigate the matter. In addition, law enforcement agencies and US officials have been contacted. It said that at the present time our whole focus is to start the service back in a safe and effective manner, so that we can succeed in our efforts for normal operation. There have been two major cyber attacks in the US in recent months. Thousands of computers from the US government and private sector had to face trouble due to the ‘solarwind’ attack. America blamed Russia for this. At the same time, the second cyber attack was done on Microsoft’s email server.
Also Read: Ingenuity Helicopter Completes First One-Way Trip on Mars Surface, NASA Releases Audio-Video
.