Biden ‘No Comment’ On Reports Colonial Pipeline Paid $5M Ransom To Hackers
But First RT comments: A cyberattack that crippled fuel supplies on the East Coast of the US and sent gas prices soaring could have been an inside job conducted by American spooks, rather than foreign hackers, a prominent Russian IT expert has claimed.
After a massive systems failure caused the Colonial Pipeline to shut down, Natalya Kaspersky, the founder and former CEO of security software firm Kaspersky Lab, as well as one of Russia’s wealthiest women, made the explosive suggestions in an interview with RIA Novosti on Friday. She alleges that the US’ top foreign intelligence agency, the CIA, has a crack team of digital warriors who are able to masquerade as overseas hacking groups.
According to her, the group, known as UMBRAGE, is adept at hiding its online footprints. The existence of the team first came to light in a series of documents published by WikiLeaks in 2017 and subsequently picked up by American media. At the time, USA Today said that the shadowy operatives “may have been cataloguing hacking methods from outside hackers, including in Russia, that would have allowed the agency to mask their identity by employing the method during espionage.”
President Joe Biden refused to comment on reports that Colonial Pipeline Co. paid a ransom to hackers after it fell victim to a cyberattack last week. It seems highly unusual for the president to have a closed-lip on this issue but perhaps it is in line with the path to impediment global change that must start in the USA, in order for the rest of the world to follow.
Ireland’s health service shuts down IT systems over ransomware attack by
‘international criminals’ https://news.sky.com/story/irelands-health-service-shuts-down-it-systems-over-significant-ransomware-attack-12305982
Cyber-attack hackers threaten to share US police informant data
Quoting Rockefeller-Foundation.pdf, ‘With government power weakened, order rapidly disintegrating, and safety nets evaporating, violence and crime grew more rampant. Are government powers being weakened? Is not violence and crime and homelessness exploding in the US and worldwide?
‘Out of control’: Organized crime drives S.F. shoplifting, closing 17 Walgreens in five years
New York as in many US cities fell into a crime wave in the riots associated with BLM with many criminals initiated in the riots and set at large in society. “The movement to defund police departments was always destined to fail. It was an idea so dumb that only privileged activists and cowardly politicians could give it life.”
New Yorker’s face is slashed and he’s spat on at Times Square station in the fourth random subway attack within three hours amid soaring violent crime in the city
There is a marked change in New York since Rudolph Giulian cleaned up the street and made them safe.
Quoting Rockefeller-Foundation.pdf: Countries with ethnic, religious, or class divisions saw especially sharp spikes in hostility:
Biden calls Netanyahu after criticism he was silent on Israeli-Palestinian violence
Quoting Rockefeller-Foundation.pdf: Meanwhile, overtaxed militaries and police forces could do little to stop growing communities of criminals and terrorists from gaining power. Technology-enabled gangs and networked criminal enterprises exploited both the weakness of states and the desperation of individuals.’
Colonial Pipeline suffered a ransomware cyber-attack over the weekend and took its service down for five days, causing supplies to tighten across the US.
CNN, the New York Times, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal all reported a ransom was paid, citing sources.
On Friday, Japanese consumer tech giant Toshiba said its European division in France had been hit by the same cyber-criminal gang.
Price impact
Following the cyber-attack, Colonial announced it would resume operations on Wednesday evening, but warned that it could take several days for the delivery supply chain to return to normal.
The 5,500-mile (8,900km) pipeline usually carries 2.5 million barrels a day on the East Coast.
The closure saw supplies of diesel, petrol and jet fuel tighten across the US, with prices rising, an emergency waiver passed on Monday and a number of states declaring an emergency.
The average price per gallon hit $3.008 (£2.14) – the highest level seen since October 2014, according to the Automobile Association of America.
US President Joe Biden reassured motorists on Thursday that fuel supplies should start returning to normal this weekend, even as more filling stations ran out of gasoline across the Southeast.
According to reports, Colonial had said initially it would not be paying the ransom demanded by the hackers.
Toshiba cyber-attack
Toshiba Tec France Imaging System, which is part of Toshiba, said it was hit by a similar cyber-attack by DarkSide on 4 May.
However, the firm emphasised that no leaks of data had been detected and that only a minimal amount of work data was lost during the event.
It said it had put protective measures in place immediately after the attack.
In light of a sharp increase in ransomware cyber-attacks during the pandemic, on Thursday President Biden signed an executive order to improve US cyber-defences.
Earlier in the week, he said that although there was no evidence that the Kremlin was involved, there was evidence to suggest that the DarkSide gang of hackers was based in Russia.
The news that Colonial Pipeline paid these criminals is a major blow to President Biden.
Only this week he signed a long-awaited executive order to beef up federal cyber-security and, in turn, make the US more secure from future attacks.
These efforts have, in the view of some in the cyber-security world, been completely undermined.
How can the Biden administration encourage corporations to spend millions securing their computer networks from attack when they’ve just witnessed Colonial, under the glare of the public eye, cave in to criminal demands and pay their way out of trouble?
The news will swell the ranks of those in the security world who want ransomware payments banned.
But with companies, jobs and sometimes lives put at risk when ransomware hits, it is a tough call for policymakers.
The potential silver-lining in this case comes from reports that even after Colonial paid the hackers, the criminals were so slow to help the company that pipeline staff got to work on recovery themselves.
The DarkSide hacker crew can no longer claim that they can restore victims services quickly and this may make others question whether or not to give in to their demands.
‘Our goal is to make money’
Cyber-security firms told the BBC that DarkSide operates by infiltrating an organisation’s computer network and stealing sensitive data.
Typically, a day later the hackers will make themselves known, announcing that they have encrypted all the data in the network and are prepared to leak it onto the internet, if they are not paid a ransom by a certain deadline.
DarkSide operates by making the software used to execute this attack and then training affiliates to use it, who then give the gang a cut of the ransoms they take.
Following concerns the Colonial cyber-attack was caused by nation-state hackers with a political motive, DarkSide posted on its website: “Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society.”
The group also indicated it had not been aware that Colonial was being targeted by one of its affiliates and intended to “introduce moderation and check each company” its partners want to encrypt, “to avoid social consequences in the future”.
On Friday, Reuters reported that DarkSide’s website on the dark web was no longer accessible.
Colonial Pipeline’s website also continues to be offline.