Ransomware Attack Shuts Down American Fuel Pipeline - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15171978
Politics_Observer wrote:The Russians thought this was OK because of your man Trump and republicans pretending these hacks didn't happen on their watch.

This hack happened during Biden's administration. It did not happen while Trump was president--unless you're admitting that Trump actually won in 2020, but he can hardly do anything when he's not in actual command.

Politics_Observer wrote:So don't try to pin this on Biden because any rational objective person know that is bullshit and a lie.

It happened on Biden's watch. The first thing Biden did when he became president was to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline. While the US is killing off pipelines, the Russians were completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Meanwhile, Governor Whitmer is ordering the closure of another pipeline. Maybe this is all being done by the Democrats on purpose.

'Absolute stupidity': Cybersecurity experts condemn White House for breaking with FBI and suggesting private companies could pay ransomware demands as gas pumps run dry amid Darkside pipeline hack

It's hard to believe that Biden could fuck things up as fast as he has, but here we are...

Politics_Observer wrote:You don't know if this criminal group has the approval to operate in Russia by the Russian government.

And you do? You still don't know the infection vector. Did they have the approval of the US government to operate in the United States? Obviously, the attack happened here.

Politics_Observer wrote:The Russian government, I think uses these criminal groups to attack other states so that they can wipe their hands clean and claim they had nothing to do with it, all without prosecuting these criminal groups and allowing them to operate in their jurisdiction because they do what the Russian government wants them to do. It gives the Russian government plausible deniability.

I don't think the Russian government is motivated by ransom money. It's small potatoes.

Rancid wrote:No. Thus far, the idea that Russia green lit this in any way is pure speculation. However, the current analysis say's it did come from eastern Europe.

That's a pretty big area. A lot of phishing attacks come out of Ukraine, not Russia. How do we know it isn't Zelenksy? The Biden administration spoke with Zelenksy's administration about "tackling corruption" with probably everyone on the Ukrainian side vomiting in their mouths at the thought of Hunter and Joe Biden as corruption fighters.
#15171994
blackjack21 wrote:

It happened on Biden's watch.

The first thing Biden did when he became president was to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline.

Cybersecurity experts condemn White House for breaking with FBI and suggesting private companies could pay ransomware demands as gas pumps run dry amid Darkside pipeline hack


I don't think the Russian government is motivated by ransom money. It's small potatoes.


Ukraine



And the crazy continues...

Yes, it happened on Biden's watch, but Russian cyber intrusions have been ongoing for several years.

Keystone was a bad idea, and even if it had been finished, would have made no difference. That crude is crap, we'd be idiots to let it into the country.

It was a mistake to talk about that in public. However, this is a major security weakness we've known about for a long time. If we paid them off, and then worked on upgrading the country's security, that would work.

Putin is motivated by a lot more than ransom money. We're in a cyberwar, kid...

Ukraine again??? If you were serious you'd make Forest Gump look smart. But you're not, you're a paid troll.
#15171998
Rancid wrote:Biden Biden Biden Biden


Bidens victory has decimated the Republican party which is in the process of imploding. So there is no real "goal" right now or "vision". The only vision that the Republicans have left is to blame Biden for anything really. Trump had vision by the way. Even if that vision was flawed in my opinion.

If you think that Cheney vote is bad then just wait till all those disenfranchised Republicans are going to become independent or join the Democrats. And i don't mean just the voters but also the high ranking officials like Romney or Cheney. :lol:
#15172005
JohnRawls wrote:
Bidens victory has decimated the Republican party which is in the process of imploding. So there is no real "goal" right now or "vision". The only vision that the Republicans have left is to blame Biden for anything really. Trump had vision by the way. Even if that vision was flawed in my opinion.

If you think that Cheney vote is bad then just wait till all those disenfranchised Republicans are going to become independent or join the Democrats. And i don't mean just the voters but also the high ranking officials like Romney or Cheney. :lol:


Yea, I think we should take a shot every time a pofo Trumpster writes "biden". They have an autistic obsession with point to Biden for every little fuck in thing that happens. Jesus Christ these people are dumbfucks.

I do hope the Republican party dissolves. Whatever replaces it will need to drop the looney Trumpsters.
#15172012
JohnRawls wrote:If you think that Cheney vote is bad then just wait till all those disenfranchised Republicans are going to become independent or join the Democrats. And i don't mean just the voters but also the high ranking officials like Romney or Cheney. :lol:

They don't call them RINOs for nothing. They pretty much are Democrats already. Cheney and Romney are neoconservative, which is basically the socially conservative version of neoliberal--that is, they are on the same side. These people like Joe Biden, because Biden is one of them. He voted for all those wars.

Rancid wrote:Yea, I think we should take a shot every time a pofo Trumpster writes "biden". They have an autistic obsession with point to Biden for every little fuck in thing that happens.

Really? You haven't heard me complain that much about Biden. However, this cyber attack certainly isn't Trump's fault, or because the Republicans don't have a plan. That's frankly absurd. The Southeast up to New Jersey running out of gasoline isn't a small thing to them. Both Politics_Observer and late are talking about going to war with Russia.

Rancid wrote:Jesus Christ these people are dumbfucks.

Do you want to go to war with Russia? That's a really stupid idea.

Rancid wrote:I do hope the Republican party dissolves. Whatever replaces it will need to drop the looney Trumpsters.

With Cheney getting replaced by Stefanik, that's not likely the case.
#15172031
@blackjack21, Biden vowed to root out the hackers and prosecute, etc. etc.

How do you think he's going to use this obvious false flag to send out death squads around America?

The radical socialist agenda that Biden keeps pushing. It's a monstrosity.
#15172063
@Rancid @blackjack21 @Goranhammer @Scamp

And guess who ultimately pays the hackers?! We do!

Zachary B. Wolf of CNN wrote:Ransom-hungry hackers who took down Colonial Pipeline may have been after a quick payday, but they also unleashed the latest threat to the on-demand, everything-is-cheap lifestyle Americans are used to by starving several states of the lifeblood of the US economy: gas.

Actions have consequences in an interconnected world. There are butterfly effects and snowball effects. There are supply chain issues, and Americans primed by a pandemic for panic-buying are doing just that. A year ago it was toilet paper as Americans hunkered down. Today it's gas as Americans trying to move around read about a pipeline taken offline.

If a single stuck tanker in the Suez Canal can affect worldwide commerce, as happened in the Suez Canal in March, then taking down a major East Coast pipeline is going to reverberate too.

More than 60% of gas stations in North Carolina were out of fuel just before 1 p.m. ET Wednesday, according to GasBuddy.com. Close to half in Virginia and Georgia were out. They are tracking the shortage, still contained to the Southeast and mid-Atlantic.

Colonial Pipeline is still not completely back up and running, creating a throbbing backup of fuel on the Gulf Coast, shuttering many gas stations from Georgia to Virginia, and driving prices of $3 per gallon for the first time since 2014. The pipeline should be fully flowing this week. Until then, many people will have to limit driving.

"The nightmare scenario is that a Colonial Pipeline-style ransomware attack disrupts major banks or even financial markets, dealing a blow to the flow of money and confidence in the system. Instead of lines at gas stations, social media would be ablaze with images of broken ATMs or inaccessible brokerage accounts."

Those pieces of US infrastructure, security experts told him, have more robust cyber defenses than Colonial Pipeline. Let's hope so.

Just about everything in the country is getting more expensive. CNN's Anneken Tappe puts the inflation in historical perspective: "Stripping out more volatile food and energy prices, core inflation was 3% in the 12-month period through April, the biggest increase since January 1996. For the month, core prices rose 0.9%, the largest monthly increase in 39 years."

She writes about how coming out of the pandemic is driving demand. Used cars, travel, furniture. It seems like everything.

Note. When I said pirates I was not joking. I wrote about the ransomware attack and the pipeline on Monday and referred to the criminal ransomware hackers as a secret criminal syndicate of nerd pirates. I meant those words to be descriptive, but caught some criticism online from people who said I was being flip, referring to them as pirates. I actually don't think the concept of pirates -- taken literally -- is anything but scary. But I can appreciate the criticism and I have been known to enjoy a pirate movie.

Pirates, I think, are no less miscast in popular media than hackers. Clearly, when a large portion of the country can't buy gas, it's no joke.


https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/12/politics ... index.html
#15172068
What are the odds that this was a cyber attack covertly orchestrated by the Russia or Chinese govs to test the Biden admin?

The Russians already tested Biden's military resolve in eastern Ukraine the moment the snow melted in the spring in eastern Russia and tanks were able to roll.

Maybe it was a private criminal group. Either way this is alarming that vital infrastructure to the US economy and military was able to be co-opted by hackers with malicious intent.
#15172074
@Unthinking Majority @blackjack21 @Scamp @Goranhammer

Well it looks like Colonial Oil pipeline won't have to pay the ransom after all. They managed to stop the hackers before they were able to exfiltrate the data they were attempting to steal to Eastern Europe or Russia. They were also able to get their operations back up and running again. The hackers, in addition to encrypting the data were trying to steal the data and Colonial Pipeline managed to freeze the data on a server here in the U.S. before the hackers were able to get it out of the U.S. and into their own hands.

And this happened on Biden's watch @blackjack21 . I guess this means it's 1 Biden 0 Russian hackers :lol: I guess we should give credit and thank Biden for his excellent leadership in stopping the hackers, by your logic, right @blackjack21 and @Scamp !? :lol: Thank you Biden! :lol:

Colonial Pipeline is aiming to restore its data instead of paying off the hackers who attacked the company last week, the Washington Post reported Wednesday, days after the pipeline operator shut down its network and sparked fears of East Coast gasoline shortages.

Colonial isn’t planning on making a ransom payment to hackers in exchange for restoring stolen data, and it’s working with cybersecurity company FireEye to rebuild its systems and recover backups, according to the Post, citing two unnamed sources.

Ransom payments to hacking groups like DarkSide — which the FBI has blamed for the Colonial attack — can total millions of dollars, some experts say.

The Post reported that a U.S.-based hosting company shut down a server connected to Colonial’s stolen data last weekend.

Colonial has made “forward progress” on restoring its main pipeline and has already reopened some smaller parts of its network, and it hopes to “substantially” restore service by the end of the week, the company said in statements Monday and Tuesday.

FireEye confirmed to Forbes that it’s working with Colonial but did not provide further comment, and Colonial didn’t answer questions about its strategy.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2 ... 913d141c34

But seriously, Colonial Oil lucked out this time as they managed to prevent that stolen data from being exfiltrated outside the United States and at least kept some backups.
Last edited by Politics_Observer on 13 May 2021 00:44, edited 1 time in total.
#15172076
Here is more information:

Natasha Bertrand, Evan Perez, Zachary Cohen and Geneva Sands wrote:In response to the attack, private sector companies worked with US agencies to take a key server offline as recently as Saturday, disrupting the cyberattacks against the pipeline operator, CNN previously reported.

That move appears to have made it possible for Colonial to take steps to restore its computer system from backups, rather than pay the ransom, according to Allan Liska, senior security architect at Recorded Future.

"Since the exfiltrated data was cut off and never reached the 'homeland' there is no real additional incentive to pay an extortion now," Liska said, referring to what is likely Russia or another Eastern European country. On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki referred to the FBI guidance on whether to pay ransoms. "Of course, the guidance from the FBI is not to do that," she said.


https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/12/politics ... index.html

Still Colonial Oil got lucky on this one.
#15172106
Politics_Observer wrote:@Goranhammer

We need alternative energy resources that do not contribute to climate change. Otherwise, we won't have a world left to run. Our planet would be like Venus, too hot and gaseous for life to be able to live on. What good would that be?


Are you under the impression that it makes us use less fossil fuels?

All it does is rely on costlier, less secure ways of transporting it. It didn't make our economy green, it made it expensive.
#15172345
@Robert Urbanek @Goranhammer @blackjack21 @Rancid @Potemkin @Unthinking Majority @Scamp @B0ycey

Well, it looks like the reports coming out of the Colonial Oil Fuel pipeline hack have been conflicting. Now they are saying that Colonial Oil did indeed pay the ransom. Which goes to show how weak America's cyber defenses are and how Colonial Oil either was not investing in cyber security like it should have been or if they did invest in cyber security, some of their cyber security analysts and/or the technology they had missed alerts from their SIEM that was alerting them to a hack (and thats only if Colonial Oil invested in cyber security). I suspect though, that Colonial Oil had not been investing in cyber security as from what I have been reading cyber security is seen by many private companies as not a money maker and thus they don't like to invest in cyber security.

Victoria Albert of CBS News wrote:Colonial Pipeline paid a ransom to the hackers who infiltrated its system and forced the shutdown of a major pipeline supplying fuel to the East Coast last week, multiple sources confirmed to CBS News on Thursday. One source familiar with the investigation said the company paid a multi-million dollar ransom.

The sources did not provide a specific timeline for the payment but said the company paid the hackers shortly after its systems started locking up last week. The company has not publicly confirmed the payment.

Bloomberg News, which first reported the payment, said the company paid the hackers $5 million. CBS News has not confirmed that figure.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colonial-p ... d-hackers/

This should be a stark lesson to people on the very serious threat that cyber warfare can actually impose on an economy and the importance for cyber defenses. This is also a stark lesson on the importance of education.
#15172348
Politics_Observer wrote:This should be a stark lesson to people on the very serious threat that cyber warfare can actually impose on an economy and the importance for cyber defenses. This is also a stark lesson on the importance of education.


I already knew the seriousness of it. In fact it is one of many reasons I don't believe important infrastructure should be privately owned. Profits compromises quality and liability. So it is an expensive lesson for Colonial Oil as well as the American government I suspect. Besides, my understanding is the pipeline is working offline at the moment and you have to question why everything is on-line given the risk actually.

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