The largest gasoline pipeline on the East Coast, and the US in general, was shut down on Friday after its operator struggled to contain a cyberattack which threatened its systems. The 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, which is the single largest refined-products pipeline in the United States, halted transit as the company was forced to take "certain systems offline to contain the threat, which has temporarily halted all pipeline operations," according to The Wall Street Journal on Saturday. It's reportedly still offline into early Saturday.

Colonial's network is responsible for supplying fuel that originates with refiners on the Gulf Coast to most of the eastern and southern US, accounting for over 2.5 million barrels per day in gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, or other refined products transferred, making up 45% of all the East Coast's fuel supply. It spans from Texas through southern states and up to New Jersey.

"At this time, our primary focus is the safe and efficient restoration of our service and our efforts to return to normal operation," the Alpharetta, Georgia-based company stated. "This process is already underway, and we are working diligently to address this matter and to minimize disruption to our customers."

The disruption earlier in the day Friday saw Gulf Coast cash prices for gasoline and diesel push lower, though longer-term price effects will depend on just how long the lines remain shut. If the closure persists further into the weekend or even early next week, it's very likely to send gasoline prices soaring.

The last time there was a significant shutdown of Colonial's lines was during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which shot spot Gulf Coast gasoline prices to a five-year high and diesel to near a four-year high.

This fresh cyberattack against vital American infrastructure has reportedly already seen federal agencies and law enforcement get involved, alongside a third-party cybersecurity firm brought in by Colonial to launch an investigation. Some of the early details of the investigation suggest a ransomware attack, which is being reported as follows:

The Washington Post reported that ransomware was used in the attack, citing two U.S. officials it didn’t identify. It wasn’t clear if the attack was carried out by foreign government hackers or a criminal group, the officials told the Post. In ransomware attacks, hackers typically encrypt an organization’s computer files and then demand a ransom payment to unlock the data.

Though there appears little in the way of culprits or suspected individuals or entities that may have carried out the attack at this early period of the investigation, we can expect the Biden administration to hold this up as a prime example of why his ambitious cybersecurity and power grid protection initiative is urgent and essential.

It also comes after the White House's April 15 sanctions rollout targeting Russian officials and entities for alleged involvement in the SolarWinds hack. The need for an overhaul of cybersecurity and protections of US government and civil infrastructure networks has been a major theme of this administration, also stemming from leading Democrats quickly blaming Moscow for pretty much every hack which targets American companies or agencies for much of the past five years, despite cases often lacking any evidence as to responsible parties. The Iranians and Chinese have also increasingly brought in alongside the Russians as prime nefarious actors in terms of cyberthreats.

However, as was recently admitted in a Wired piece on the Oldsmar, Florida water supply systems hack wherein chemicals were added to the town's water at dangerous levels, there's also many instances of "unsophisticated" lone wolf hackers able to sometimes penetrate overly exposed systems.

Source
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/cyberattack-forces-shutdown-largest-fuel-pipeline-united-states

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Jack said:

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/05/09/cyberattacks-infrastructure-colonial-pipeline-biden-official-warns/?sh=547a4d701034

May 9, 2021,01:20pm EDT

Cyberattacks Against U.S. Infrastructure Are 'Here To Stay' After 100-Gigabyte Colonial Pipeline Hack, Biden Official Warns

Two days after a hacking group forced the nation's biggest gasoline pipeline to shut down, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo cautioned Sunday morning that cyberattacks against U.S. businesses and infrastructure are "here to stay" and becoming more frequent, joining a chorus of government officials urging Congress to help better prepare the private sector for future attacks.

"This is what businesses now have to worry about," Raimondo said to CBS' Face the Nation of the ransomware attack and data hack that led Colonial Pipeline, the nation's top fuel pipeline operator, to shut down Friday.

Though she didn't give a timeline for when the pipeline, which supplies roughly 45% of gas to the nation's East Coast, would restart operations, Raimondo said President Joe Biden has been briefed on the attack and is working closely with the company and local officials to commence normal operations "as quickly as possible" and without supply disruptions.

"The implications for this, on our national security, cannot be overstated," Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who sits on the chamber's energy committee and represents one of the states affected by the attack, told NBC News' Meet the Press on Sunday morning of the pipeline shutdown.

Cassidy also said there would be bipartisan support to provide businesses with authority over classified information and U.S. infrastructure with resources to withstand cyberattacks, saying: "I promise you: this is something that Republicans and Democrats can work together on."

The Commerce Secretary didn't respond to a question about whether the attack was expected to have disruptive economic effects, but Patrick DeHaan, the head of petroleum analysis at price-tracking website GasBuddy, says he doesn't expect the shutdown will last long enough to make fuel pricing or supply an issue.

DeHaan said some Southeast states may experience price increases, but only if the shutdown lasts more than 5 days; when the pipeline shut down for more than 10 days in 2016, gas prices rose by as much as 30 cents per gallon in some states.
Key Background

Colonial Pipeline learned Friday that it was the victim of a cybersecurity attack and took its systems offline "to contain the threat," the company said in a Saturday statement. Part of an online hacking group called DarkSide, the hackers took nearly 100 gigabytes of data from Colonial Pipeline on Thursday and then locked the company's computers before demanding payment to prevent a data leak, Bloomberg reported Saturday, saying it's unclear how much money the group demanded and whether Colonial has paid. Former senior White House policy adviser Bob McNally called the attack the "biggest energy disruption" since drones (believed to have been sent by Iran) attacked Saudi Arabian oil facilities in 2019—causing oil prices to briefly spike nearly 20%. As of press time, Colonial hasn't returned a Forbes request for comment.
Crucial Quote

"Unfortunately, these sorts of attacks are becoming more frequent. They're here to stay, and we have to work in partnership with business to secure networks to defend ourselves against these attacks," Raimondo said Sunday. "As it relates to Colonial, the President was briefed yesterday, and it's an all hands on deck effort right now."
Tangent

Raimondo and Cassidy join a growing chorus of government officials warning that cyberattacks are now among the biggest threats to U.S. national security. In a televised interview last month, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank is concerned that cyberattacks could trigger a market collapse similar in magnitude to the Great Recession if financial institutions' ability to track payments are compromised—a risk the International Monetary Fund estimates may cost banks about $100 billion annually. Meanwhile, Biden's national security team has reportedly made an effort to deter such attacks its top priority following reports in March that vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange were being used to potentially compromise "U.S. think tanks and defense industrial base entities.”

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What do they mean "here to stay"? Who even uses that sort of language? It sounded like the enemy is signalling that they want to use this sort of method to cause havoc. If this is the case, cyberattacks were likely chosen since they fit the bill of the "mysterious enemy" and are easier to cover up or blame on Russia.

Blitzkreig said:

What do they mean "here to stay"? Who even uses that sort of language? It sounded like the enemy is signalling that they want to use this sort of method to cause havoc. If this is the case, cyberattacks were likely chosen since they fit the bill of the "mysterious enemy" and are easier to cover up or blame on Russia.

Click to expand...

I thought the same thing. It’s just the usual predictive programming, subliminal manipulation, etc that the enemy always employs when trying to manifest their agenda.

The next thing on the agenda is cyberwar and cyber shutdown of the economy, which they will leverage to shut down and influence global communication (the Internet) and further weaken the western economy which has become increasingly reliant on digital infrastructure.

At the same time they can blame whomever they deem convenient for any cyberattacks since basically nobody can look into this to find proof on who is the actual perpetrator, which they will use to incite conflict between nations they want to have going to war and justify said conflict before the people.

In actuality, pretty much all major cyber attacks that have happened and are come to be are caused by jews or by jew controlled agencies/groups, with the only purpose being to further their agenda, namely word war 3 and economic destabilization and civil disruption to collapse western society and economy. Also to have an excuse to further instill dystopian social norms and laws, further infringe upon any freedoms people have and ought to be able to enjoy, as they have been doing with Covid.

Likely the Biden administration and this commerce secretary were already aware of this premeditated attack by the globalist jews long before it happened and perhaps even had a hand in the execution of it, as they are literally sock puppets of the globalist jews, aiding and abetting the globalist jews in manifesting their agenda. They are pretty much just following a script at this point to try and manifest the desired reality of the enemy.

Before the failed (((Covid))) pandemic plan completely falls apart and they are forced to give up on it, they want to jump to the next plan, not allowing humanity to catch any break, which is cyber warfare against humanity, to keep people perpetually stuck in a loop of intangible attacks that threaten society, to take away any and all commodities and pleasantries in life, to further imprison and corner humanity, to force them to cave in to the pressure and allow the globalist jew to take full control so they can lead humanity into the planned dystopian technocratic dictatorship and enslave everyone as per orders of their extraterrestrial masters.

I do however believe they are doomed to miserably fail in this endeavor, due to our war efforts against them.