A woman fills gas cans at a Speedway gas station on May 12, 2021 in Benson, North Carolina. Most stations in the area along I-95 are without fuel following the Colonial Pipeline hack.
Sean Rayford | Getty Images
The Colonial Pipeline hack was not the first domino to fall in a world-ending spate of sudden attacks on America’s critical infrastructure, according to several cybersecurity experts.
It was more likely the product of sloppy internal security practices and a textbook hack-and-pay gone wrong, they said.
The FBI says that DarkSide, a group relatively new to the ransomware scene, is behind the attack. Signs point to this being a case of a bungled extortion plot, rather than the coordinated work of hackers intent on compromising America’s energy grid.
Whatever the motivation, the impact was real.
The federal government issued an emergency declaration for 17 states and the District of Columbia after the country’s largest fuel pipeline went down. Gasoline price hikes and shortages were reported across the U.S., though the supply crunch is likely more to do with panic buyers heading to the pump than the attack itself. Colonial paid nearly $5 million as a ransom to unlock its…
