Chronic. It is an immense and solid artery which irrigates a good part of America. The Colonial Pipeline stretches nearly 9,000 kilometers along the eastern seaboard of the United States, from Houston to New York via Washington and Atlanta. On its own, it supplies 45% of the region’s needs for gasoline, fuel oil, kerosene and other refined fuels in Texas.
Also listen Computer Attacks: The Ransomware Flurry
But the flow has not been flowing since Friday evening, May 7. A computer attack disrupted the information system of the network operating company. Hackers have encrypted the data and demand a ransom to unlock it. Uncertainly, the US government has declared a state of emergency to allow tankers to travel through the 17 states crossed by the network. Boats are requisitioned.
The lack of preparation is total
This is the first time that a computer attack has hit critical energy infrastructure so severely. But this is not the first time that professionals have been warned. In 2016, according to the Wall Street Journal, the cyber security service of the Department of Homeland Security had identified 186 vulnerabilities in the energy sector and, in 2018, a similar intrusion, with a ransom note, had affected the ordering system of a compression unit from a gas supplier. The company had no response plan to such an assault.
Like the current pandemic, the arrival of which had been announced in all tones by many experts for more than ten years, the victims nevertheless fall starkly when evil arrives. The lack of preparation is total. However, it is no longer a question of a black swan, this very unlikely event with devastating consequences, but of a risk now known and marked out. Whether hidden in Russia, China or California, hackers are now attacking schools, hospitals and even the administration. Sometimes to infect, or even destroy, sometimes to take essential data and programs hostage.
The faults are often the same, at the heart of machines, old equipment, dating from before the Internet, coupled with modern systems connected to the network. Burglars use one to touch the other. Digital crime flourishes in the world’s shift towards networks. It would be good to prepare seriously for it.
