Emergency Declared over Colonial Gas Cyber Attack. Biden’s Policies Have Created Shortages.

A ransomware attack on Friday forced Colonial to shut down a 5,500-mile pipeline carrying over 100 million gallons per day from Texas all the way to New York. The FBI has blamed ‘DarkSide’, a group of criminal hackers the US corporate media have accused of being ‘Russian-speaking.’ The group did not admit to the attack, but issued a statement insisting they were “apolitical” and just out to “make money.” The New York Times falsely reported that there were no long lines at gas stations on the southeast coast, in contradiction to multitudes of video footage showing long lines and gas stations that had run out of fuel. In Atlanta, 20% of the gas stations had no fuel.

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.

Motorists and even airlines struggled to find fuel across the southeastern US due to the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, but the Biden administration denied there was a “shortage” and blamed “hoarders” for the “supply crunch.”

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.”

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