Friday, April 25, 2025
HomeRansomwareRansomware Attack on The U.S. Largest Gasoline Pipeline Shut Down Operations

Ransomware Attack on The U.S. Largest Gasoline Pipeline Shut Down Operations

Published on

SIEM as a Service

Follow Us on Google News

The largest gasoline company in the US, Colonial Pipeline was recently attacked by ransomware, and this attack has caused the company to shut down all its operations. 

Colonial Pipeline produces half of the gasoline and diesel on the East Coast of the US. On the 7th of May, the Colonial Pipeline learned that they have become the victim of a cyberattack. 

However, as a quick action to mitigate this situation, they promptly shut down some of their systems to accommodate the threat that has temporarily halted all the pipeline operations and also affected some of their information systems.

- Advertisement - Google News

The Supply of Gasoline Could Be Disrupted

The Colonial Pipeline supplies the fuel from Gulf Coast refineries to the eastern and southern regions of the US as we hinted earlier. The company transports 2.5 million barrels of refined fuel per day, and the pipeline is almost 9 kilometers long.

In short, it’s more than 454 million liters of fuel are elevated through the pipelines that it serves daily. While according to the provided by the company itself, Colonial Pipeline supplies over 45% of the fuel to the East Coast.

But, here the most terrifying thing is that if the company won’t able to return back the supply to a normal state within a few days, then this situation could provoke disruptions in the supply of gasoline to the US East Coast.

Moreover, to normalize the situation and to mitigate the disruptions the suppliers are already looking for other alternative supply paths to avoid the fuel shortages from Atlanta to New York.

Even the company itself has confirmed that they are already in the process of reviving all their services. While they have affirmed that once they will deem that the situation is now under control and everything is safe to start, they will bring back their full system online.

Hackers behind this attack

The former agents of the US administration who worked in the field of cybersecurity have speculated that the hackers or the hackers’ group behind this critical cyberattack is ‘DarkSide.’

According to the reports, this attack was carried out within the structure of a “criminal scheme” and was not launched by the authorities.

In this attack, the hacker has managed to seize almost 100GB of data from the company’s network. But, the outcomes of the attack were limited to hacking of information systems only, as during this event the hackers weren’t able to manage to penetrate the company’s control system.

Recently, the cyberattacks against the critical US infrastructure have grown dramatically, hence, these types of situations are constantly provoking the White House to develop a program directed at strengthening the security of these types of critical infrastructures.

Colonial is Investigating

Colonial has declared that it had already hired a third-party cybersecurity firm to start the investigation. Through this investigation, they will detect the nature and extent of this incident.

Not only that even the Colonial Pipeline also proclaimed that they are in constant touch with the law enforcement and other federal agencies like the Department of Energy of the US.

You can follow us on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook for daily Cybersecurity, and hacking news updates.

Balaji
Balaji
BALAJI is an Ex-Security Researcher (Threat Research Labs) at Comodo Cybersecurity. Editor-in-Chief & Co-Founder - Cyber Security News & GBHackers On Security.

Latest articles

DragonForce and Anubis Ransomware Gangs Launch New Affiliate Programs

Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) researchers have uncovered innovative strategies deployed by the DragonForce...

“Power Parasites” Phishing Campaign Targets Energy Firms and Major Brands

Silent Push Threat Analysts have uncovered a widespread phishing and scam operation dubbed "Power...

Threat Actors Register Over 26,000 Domains Imitating Brands to Deceive Users

Researchers from Unit 42 have uncovered a massive wave of SMS phishing, or "smishing,"...

Russian Hackers Attempt to Sabotage Digital Control Systems of Dutch Public Service

The Dutch Defense Ministry has revealed that critical infrastructure, democratic processes, and North Sea...

Resilience at Scale

Why Application Security is Non-Negotiable

The resilience of your digital infrastructure directly impacts your ability to scale. And yet, application security remains a critical weak link for most organizations.

Application Security is no longer just a defensive play—it’s the cornerstone of cyber resilience and sustainable growth. In this webinar, Karthik Krishnamoorthy (CTO of Indusface) and Phani Deepak Akella (VP of Marketing – Indusface), will share how AI-powered application security can help organizations build resilience by

Discussion points


Protecting at internet scale using AI and behavioral-based DDoS & bot mitigation.
Autonomously discovering external assets and remediating vulnerabilities within 72 hours, enabling secure, confident scaling.
Ensuring 100% application availability through platforms architected for failure resilience.
Eliminating silos with real-time correlation between attack surface and active threats for rapid, accurate mitigation

More like this

DragonForce and Anubis Ransomware Gangs Launch New Affiliate Programs

Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) researchers have uncovered innovative strategies deployed by the DragonForce...

Threat Actors Target Organizations in Thailand with Ransomware Attacks

Thailand is experiencing a significant escalation in ransomware attacks, with both state-sponsored advanced persistent...

Verizon DBIR Report: Small Businesses Identified as Key Targets in Ransomware Attacks

Verizon Business's 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), released on April 24, 2025, paints...