Hacked American Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers $5 Million In Ransom To Restore Operations

The hacked American Colonial Pipeline Co. paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers to help restore the country’s largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the transaction.

Hacked American Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers $5 Million In Ransom To Restore Operations

The largest gasoline pipeline in the U.S. is returning to service following a cyberattack that took the fuel artery offline for five days.

The company paid the hefty ransom in difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency within hours after the attack.

A third person familiar with the situation said U.S. government officials are aware that Colonial made the payment, reported Bloomberg.

Once they received the payment, the hackers provided the operator with a decrypting tool to restore its disabled computer network.

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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.

The hackers, which the FBI said are linked to a group called DarkSide, specialize in digital extortion.

“They had to pay,” said Ondrej Krehel, chief executive officer and founder of digital forensics firm LIFARS and a former cyber expert at Loews Corp., which owns Boardwalk Pipeline.

“This is a cyber cancer. You want to die or you want to live? It’s not a situation where you can wait.”

report released last month by a ransomware task force said the amount paid by victims increased by 311% in 2020, reaching about $350 million in cryptocurrency. The average ransom paid by organizations in 2020 was $312,493, according to report.

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11 COMMENTS

  1. It is my opinion that the same Genocidal Globalists who are trying to brainwash the world into taking the lethally toxic Experimental Eugenics Depopulation Bioweapon COVID Injection also has their goal to destroy the transportation industry through ransomware attacks in order to create a worldwide famine. They are all the same group.

  2. so we see KNOWLEDGE IS ALL. but the best knowledge always is : WHAT COMES AFTER AHEAD : WHO ARE THIS WORLD MANIPULATORS ? USING POLITICANS CIA MI6 mossad
    freemasonmafia,Soros, Bill Gates,Fauci ;using illuminaties ? are behind Kennedy murder,
    Kashoggi murder, 9.11.bali bomb, fukushima bombing,tianjin bomb, covid vax hoax . are all
    politicans blackmailed the way it looks how they behave ?? ? COWARDS + SWINDLERS
    are they anyway. NOBODY speaks out ! and they know more than i. they cannot be more
    stupid than i ! it is said they are in hands of lobbism. who is that lobby on top ?

  3. Lots of shady 💩 going on.
    Watch “⚠️ALERT🚨 Elon Musk Worst Bitcoin Dump (Cardano All Time High)” on YouTube
    https: // youtu.be/ Ir9QIfYHD6g

    [ you tube will probably take this down- Jefferey Zients [ former management consultant at Bain and company, who sat on the board of Facebook and also ran Bidens transition team is now appointed WHIYE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATION] ….the catalyst for ” the reset. But I digress.

    Start watching at 26 minutes and then either watch through or skip too “Inflation explosion”

    It’s all energy wars and of course Russian and Iranian energy are still globalist targets.

  4. Well Said…1000% true..This Fake Eastern European hackers is as bollocks by the CIA as Osama caused 911. It was DONE BY AMERICAN GOVERNMENT…WAKE UP….I was wondering, if they would accuse North Korea but then Crypto drama could not be included.

    America cabal has enemy lined up for every evil they do

  5. when even deep staters are able to arson california + greece with space lasers (exist fotos)
    and destroy election machines,in tennesee, proof material of rigget elections, with DEW it
    shows us that the perpetrators are in military + cia . they make all hacking, not smal russian
    criminals . this is a typical cia desinformatie ! nothing what comes out of their kitchen to their
    jew media is to believe !

  6. Oh dear – “Eastern Europe” – we’ll NEVER catch them! – probably Russian backed on the orders of Putin!!

    “The company paid the hefty ransom in difficult-to-trace [clever bastards] cryptocurrency within hours after the attack.” [I guess we’ll never be able to close down their difficult-to-trace accounts.]

    “A third person familiar with the situation” … is that like Michael Rennie playing the part of Harry Lime? Oh PLEASE!!

    “They had to pay,” said Ondrej Krehel, chief executive officer and founder of digital forensics firm LIFARS and a former cyber expert at Loews Corp., which owns Boardwalk Pipeline.

    Oh well – whatever the experts say, I suppose. Loews Corp – well Tisch, Tisch, Tisch …

  7. Steven Fishman, you have a real valid point there, and I agree 100%. It’s the same Genocidal Globalists who are trying to brainwash the world into taking the lethally toxic Experimental Eugenics Depopulation Bioweapon CV Injection .. They also have their goal to destroy the transportation industry through ransomware attacks in order to create a worldwide famine; they’re all the same group.
    These evildoers must be rounded up and tried by a tribunal; and, if convicted, be hanged in public, or sent to GITMO for life.

  8. I have said this all along, Medical services, banks, utilities, etc all need to keep the operations portions of their buisnesses completely separate from the internet. And paper backup for their records. What do you think is going to happen if the sun has a temper tantrum and sends a large EMP pulse towards us? Or for that matter, one of our enemies? And what is someone hacks into one of our nuclear reactors? They certainly better be completely separate and cyber protected!

  9. Maybe a false flag, paid themselves in Crap-Toes, and a decent excuse to ban the Crap-Toe Casino.

  10. According to a pipeline specialist, this all a con, the pipeline can be manually operated by turning vavles

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