Ransomware Gone Awry
More than 10,000 gas stations had empty pumps after a Darkside ransomware attack against Alpharetta, Ga.-based Colonial Pipeline jeopardized fuel access for more than 50 million Americans. The May 8 hack forced Colonial to shut its 5,500-mile pipeline for five days, which people from Houston to New York City rely on to bring refined fuel products from the Gulf Coast to their homes or businesses.
Colonial reportedly paid a ransom of nearly $5 million to Darkside in a push to speed up the restoration process, but Darkside’s decryption tool was so slow that Colonial ended up using its own backups to restore its system, Bloomberg reported Thursday. This reportedly is one of the biggest ransomware payments ever made, exceeding the $2.3 million Travelex paid to Sodinokibi following a ransomware attack.
CRN spoke with eight prominent C-suite executives at RSA Conference 2021 about the long-term ramifications of this unprecedented ransomware attack. From new rules around information sharing and disclosure to the hardening of critical infrastructure systems to retaliatory actions from the U.S. government, here are eight big changes expected in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline hack. 1 23… 9NextRELATED TOPICS: