Got gas (petrol)?

[Slateman]

Pipeline is back online

[GburgNatsFan]

Sat in a line until 1AM this morning to get  gas for the van for the weekend (we really need it this weekend). In a county in a state that is not supplied by the pipeline.

[imref]

gas buddy shows about half the stations around me now have gas, so it looks like things are improving.

[imref]

It is always dumb rednecks that screw situations up like this.   Saw a guy in Clemson, SC trying to fill up a suitcase with gas

FWIW, the viral pics going around of a trunk of a car full of plastic bags filled with gas were from 2019 in Mexico. Two men were arrested for stealing gas.

[imref]

Via Bloomberg:

Colonial Pipeline Co. paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country’s largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the transaction.

The company paid the hefty ransom in untraceable cryptocurrency within hours after the attack, underscoring the immense pressure faced by the Georgia-based operator to get gasoline and jet fuel flowing again to major cities along the Eastern Seaboard, those people said. A third person familiar with the situation said U.S. government officials are aware that Colonial made the payment.

Once they received the payment, the hackers provided the operator with a decrypting tool to restore its disabled computer network. The tool was so slow that the company continued using its own backups to help restore the system, one of the people familiar with the company’s efforts said.

[Five Banners]

Via Bloomberg:

Capitulation should end well

[Natsinpwc]

Capitulation should end well

Like paying $50 for you or me.

[imref]

Capitulation should end well

that's usually the most effective way to get out of a ransomware attack unfortunately. Note that most of the companies being hit by these attacks are using old, unpatched, systems so they aren't operating the best of IT practices anyway.

[Five Banners]

Like paying $50 for you or me.

Especially since rates can be adjusted so that the public pays. I’m talking about this just becoming a cottage industry for some, including those for whom it is not equivalent to fifty dollars, with the recipient being all sorts of people funding all sorts of things

[imref]

Especially since rates can be adjusted so that the public pays. I’m talking about this just becoming a cottage industry for some, including those for whom it is not equivalent to fifty dollars, with the recipient being all sorts of people funding all sorts of things

It reminds me of the Somali pirate business until the Captain Phillips fiasco. The pirates knew it was cheaper for the shipping companies to pay ransom then to try and stop the piracy, so they ran it as a business, treating the captured ships well and never harming crews. Eventually they overplayed their hand.

[welch]

Via Bloomberg:

The company paid the hefty ransom in untraceable cryptocurrency within hours after the attack....

That's the benefit of cryptocurrencies: it allows crooks and terrorists to do business in "private".

(I used to work for the mechanism by which banks move money across international borders. We always pointed to money-laundering and terrorist finance as good reasons to squash  cryptocurrencies. This is an example.)

[HalfSmokes]

Like paying $50 for you or me.

I’m fine with them paying it. I’d like to see footage of a cruise middle flying into a car in a few months once the track down whoever is responsible

[Slateman]

[bluestreak]

https://twitter.com/eamonjavers/status/1393236555616165891?s=21

[imref]

Colonial's shipment scheduling system has apparently gone down, the pipeline is still working though.