Video loading...
Cover news reporter Chen Ganlu Intern Liu Hanyu Xu Jiaxi
On May 14, Beijing time, according to a number of US media reports, the US Colonial Pipeline, which was attacked by the hacking group "Darkside", paid a ransom of US$5 million to the hackers to restart the fuel transportation system. The system, which supplies about 45 percent of the southeast's fuel, including gasoline and aviation fuel, took control of the system after Friday's attacker attack and sparked a panic rush to gasoline in the southeastern United States.
The pipeline company pays the ransom
Partial supply lines are restored
On Thursday, Bloomberg News quoted two people familiar with the matter as saying that the U.S. Colonier Pipeline Transportation Company paid for the money. Another media reported that the company paid the hackers a fee, but did not disclose the specific amount. "When the hackers received the money, they provided the operator with a decryption tool to recover their paralyzed computers and networks." The insider also revealed the details: "The tool was so slow that the company had to continue to use its own backups to help restore the system." ”
The company said in a statement on the morning of the 13th local time: "By noon today, we expect that every market we serve will receive the products provided by our system." The company expects to resume pipeline operations at full speed by the end of the week. Experts say that while the situation has disrupted natural gas supplies, the depletion of gas stations is largely due to panic buying.
Bloomberg reported that hackers "acquired untraceable cryptocurrencies within hours of the attack, believed to be located in Russia or Eastern Europe." The cyberattack deploys ransomware, takes computer systems hostage, and refuses to unlock them until the ransom is paid.
Rare "compromise"
U.S. politics has yet to take a stand
As we all know, the United States Government has ordered that any individual or organization in the United States be prohibited from paying ransom to terrorists.
After 9/11 in 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush said that the ransom payment was fueling terrorist acts and allowed the FBI to intervene in the investigation and even allow the prosecution of ransom payers. In the same year, in the case of the kidnapping of journalist Daniel Pearl, the United States broke its position and paid a ransom to the Philippine terrorists, but the kidnappers did not release the hostages.
In 2015, during the ISIS (Islamic State) series of kidnappings, the U.S. government was strongly condemned by all sides, and then President Barack Obama held the hostage Kayla. After being killed, Miller still said: "Although this decision (not to pay the ransom) was difficult, I never regretted it. In August of the following year, the United States traded with the Taliban armed group, exchanging five Taliban captives for one American captive. The Wall Street Journal once broke the news that the day before the hostages were transported back to China, the United States paid $400 million to Iran, and then Secretary of State John Kerry responded that it was the United States' "indemnity" to Iran.
In October 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a statement warning U.S. organizations not to pay ransomware, claiming that the move risked violating the government's laws imposing economic sanctions on cybercrime groups.
"OFAC may impose civil penalties for sanctions violations, which means that individuals subject to U.S. jurisdiction may be liable even if they do not know (or have reason to know) that they are dealing with sanctioned or prohibited individuals." The Treasury Department said in the address.
I don't know how the U.S. government will react to paying the ransom this time.
<b>[If you have a news thread, please report to us, once adopted, there is a fee reward.] Newspaper WeChat attention: ihxdsb, newspaper QQ: 3386405712].</b>