Colonial Pipeline, a US-based pipeline company, has resumed its pipelines after a hacker attack on May 7th.

“Colonial Pipeline can now report that it has restarted its entire pipeline system and that product delivery has begun in all markets we serve,” the company tweeted.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1392943295836340231&lang=ru&theme=light&width=550px

According to Bloomberg and  The New York Times , the company paid out about 75 bitcoins, or $ 5 million, to the cyber attackers who extorted money to restore the pipeline.

As the FBI reported, the attack on the Colonial Pipeline was behind the DarkSide hacker group, based in Eastern Europe and consisting of immigrants from Russia. They injected a ransomware program into the company’s computer system that shut down the pipeline for a week. According to the US President, the Russian authorities were probably not involved in this attack.

The Colonial Pipeline, which runs more than 8,800 kilometers, supplies 45% of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products to the US East Coast. The Colonial Pipeline cyberattack has sparked a boom in gasoline demand in a number of US states.

(C)MEDUZA 2021