cyber attack
WASHINGTON (awp / dpa) – Colonial Pipeline, one of America’s largest gas pipeline operators, had to cease all operations on Friday after being the victim of a cyber attack, said the company which transports gasoline and diesel on more of 8,800 km of pipelines across the United States.
“On May 7, the Colonial Pipeline company learned that it was the victim of a cybersecurity attack,” the group said in a statement. “We took some of our systems offline as a precaution to contain the threat, which temporarily halted all pipeline operations and affected some of our IT systems,” the company adds.
Colonial Pipeline operates a network of pipelines stretching from refineries on the Gulf Coast around Houston, Texas, to the northeastern United States in the New York area.
The group says it has hired a “leading” cybersecurity company to resolve the issue and has opened an investigation into the nature and scope of the incident. “We contacted law enforcement and other federal agencies,” says Colonial Pipeline.
“For now, our main objective is the safe and efficient restoration of our services to return to normal operation”, adds the firm which says “to work diligently to solve this problem and to minimize the disruption”.
Colonial Pipeline is the largest operator of refined products pipelines in the United States, transporting more than 380 million liters of fuel oil daily to the New York metropolitan area.
Several computer attacks have rocked the United States in recent months, including the massive hack of SolarWinds, an IT management software publisher, which compromised thousands of US government computer networks. The Biden administration accused Russia of being responsible, which led to financial sanctions against Moscow and the expulsion of diplomats.
vmt / els
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