Just a few weeks ago, millions of Americans were left scrambling to find gas after an unexpected major pipeline shutdown on the East Coast. Most Americans were unaware that this crisis was caused by a ransomware attack on the company Colonial Pipeline by a criminal cyber-gang from Eastern Europe.
What happened?
For the past 2 weeks, millions of US citizens were left scrambling to find gas after an unexpected major gas pipeline was shutdown on the East Coast of the country. The ensuing fuel shortages and long lines at gas stations affected nearly 50 million Americans. The crisis began after Colonial Pipeline became aware of an attack on their network systems on May 7 and were forced to take their systems offline to prevent further damage. Colonial Pipeline operates over 5,500 of pipeline that supplies 45% of the fuel on the East Coast of the United States. They are the largest fuel pipeline in the country. Most Americans were unaware that this crisis was caused by a ransomware attack by a criminal cyber-gang suspected to be from Russia or Eastern Europe. This anonymous group of hackers are known as DarkSide. According to Bloomberg, Colonial Pipeline paid DarkSide about $5 million in (hard to trace) crypto-currency in order to receive a decrypting tool from the hackers. This tool allowed Colonial to restore its disabled network. In addition to orchestrating ransomware attacks, DarkSide is also known as a service provider that sells or leases ransomware tools to other would-be hackers. On May 14, Japan based Tobisha Tec publicized that they were the victim of ransomware attack and blamed DarkSide as well. The bottom line is, any company or government can have their critical systems attacked by anonymous actors operating from anywhere in the world. In this climate, where energy plants, gas pipelines, water facilities, airlines, and even nuclear facilities could fall prey to hackers, it’s time for a complete re-evaluation of our cyber-security tactics and technologies. Cleaning up a crisis is now the default strategy that we’ve see play out in the news time after time. It’s time for solutions that prevent these attacks from happening in the first place. We need technology that stops Zero Day attacks and prevents hackers from getting access to critical systems that can affect the lives of millions of civilians. SALUS is an innovative technology designed to do just that. SALUS