Скачать или смотреть Pipeline CEO: Ransom payment my 'hardest decision'

(8 Jun 2021) The chief executive of the massive fuel pipeline hit by ransomware last month told senators on Tuesday that authorizing a multi-million-dollar payment to hackers was the right thing to do to bring an end to fuel shortages affecting much of the eastern United States, even as authorities have discouraged such payments.
Asked how much worse it would have been if Colonial Pipeline hadn't paid to get its data back, CEO Joseph Blount said, "That's an unknown we probably don't want to know. And it's an unknown we probably don't want to play out in a public forum."
He said that given the company's crucial role in fuel transport, and the potential for "pandemonium" arising from a prolonged shutdown of the pipeline, he made the decision to pay a ransom to the hackers. The encryption tool the hackers provided the company in exchange for the payment helped "to some degree" but has not been perfect, with Colonial still in the process of fully restoring its system, Blount said.
Blount faced the Senate Homeland Security Committee, one day after the Justice Department revealed it had recovered the majority of the $4.4 million ransom payment the company made in hopes of getting its system back online.
Blount's testimony marks his first appearance before Congress since the May 7 ransomware attack that led Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline, which supplies roughly half the fuel consumed on the East Coast, to temporarily halt operations. The attack has been attributed to a Russia-based gang of cybercriminals using the DarkSide ransomware variant, one of more than 100 variants the FBI is currently investigating.
The company began negotiating with the hackers on the evening of the attack and, the following day, paid a ransom of 75 bitcoin - then valued at roughly $4.4 million. Though the FBI has historically discouraged ransomware payments for fear of encouraging cyberattacks, Colonial officials have said they saw the transaction as necessary to resume the vital fuel transport business as rapidly as possible.
"It was the hardest decision I made in my 39 years in the energy industry," Blount said in prepared remarks. "At the time, I kept this information close hold because we were concerned about operational security and minimizing publicity for the threat actor. But I believe that restoring critical infrastructure as quickly as possible, in this situation, was the right thing to do for the country."
The attack, which Blount says began after hackers exploited a virtual private network that was not intended to be in use and has since been shut down, had significant collateral consequences, including gas shortages as concerned motorists rushed to fill their tanks.
The operation to seize cryptocurrency paid to the Russia-based hacker group is the first of its kind to be undertaken by a specialized ransomware task force created by the Biden administration Justice Department. It reflects a rare victory in the fight against ransomware as U.S. officials scramble to confront a rapidly accelerating threat targeting critical industries around the world.
"By going after the entire ecosystem that fuels ransomware and digital extortion attacks - including criminal proceeds in the form of digital currency - we will continue to use all of our resources to increase the cost and consequences of ransomware and other cyber-based attacks," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at a news conference announcing the operation.
"The private sector also has an equally important role to play and we must continue to take cyber threats seriously and invest accordingly to harden our defenses," he added.

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