Emergency Declared over Colonial Gas Cyber Attack. Biden’s Policies Have Created Shortages.
UPDATE: Colonial reportedly paid the extortionists $5 million in untraceable cryptocurrency shortly after they hacked the system, but the tool tool that the hackers provided to restore the system was so slow that the company opted to use its own backups to help restore it.
Virginia and Florida declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, following North Carolina’s declaration the day before, as the disruption in pipeline operations led to over 1,000 gas stations across a dozen states running out of fuel, according to S&P’s Oil Price Information Service.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 27% of stations in North Carolina’s Greenville/Spartanburg/Anderson metro area were dry, according to GasBuddy, an app helping motorists find deals at the pump. So were 31% of pumps in Raleigh and 29% in Charlotte. Atlanta, Georgia reported a 30% outage as well. GasBuddy crashed repeatedly on Tuesday due to surging demand.
One would not know this from New York Times’ reporting, however. The newspaper claimed that since the pipeline’s shutdown due to a ransomware attack, “there have been no long lines or major price hikes for gas.”
"That is a private sector decision": White House officials say they have not offered advice to Colonial Pipeline on whether to pay ransom to hackers who shut down a vital U.S. pipeline https://t.co/5QoCH046As pic.twitter.com/mAnhcfLiQ8
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 10, 2021