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Washington (AP) - After a cyber attack, the operation of one of the largest gasoline pipelines in the United States was temporarily suspended.
The operator Colonial Pipeline announced that blackmail software was involved.
In such attacks, data on computers is encrypted - and the attackers usually demand a ransom for the release.
The "Wall Street Journal" reported, citing informed persons, that the pipeline's tax systems were not affected.
In the case of particularly important infrastructure systems, they are generally separated from the rest of the IT networks.
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Colonial Pipeline initially announced that certain systems had been proactively taken offline after a cyber attack in order to contain the threat.
The operators involved the authorities and an external IT security company.
The pipeline, which extends for the most part underground for 5500 miles (around 8850 kilometers), mainly connects refineries located on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico with the southern and eastern United States.
Among other things, gasoline, diesel fuel and heating oil are transported - around 2.5 million barrels (159 liters each) per day.
The company transports about 45 percent of all fuel consumed on the east coast and supplies more than 50 million Americans.
The US military is also one of the buyers.
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The company is working to return to normal operations and minimize the impact on customers, the statement said.
The New York Times wrote that because of the reduced energy demand in the pandemic, it was unlikely that the attack and the associated restrictions on the operation of the pipeline would have immediate consequences.
Attacks with blackmail Trojans have made headlines several times in the past few years.
In May 2017 alone, the “WannaCry” blackmail trojan paralyzed the computers of many private individuals, including computers in British hospitals and Deutsche Bahn timetable displays.
A few weeks later, the ransom software “NotPetya” hit the Maersk shipping company and the Nivea manufacturer Beiersdorf, among others.
Hacker attacks on infrastructure such as pipelines or power plants have been a horror scenario for years.
So far, however, hardly any cases of successful cyber sabotage have been reported.
The most famous incident was a large-scale power outage in Ukraine in December 2015, which is believed to be the work of Russian hackers.
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However, it was only in February that an attempt was made known to chemically manipulate drinking water in a treatment plant in the US state of Florida using a hacker attack.
The proportion of sodium hydroxide was increased more than a hundredfold.
Employees of the plant had noticed the “potentially dangerous” change immediately and reversed it, as the authorities announced at the time.
In the past few months, hackers had broken into the systems of various companies via a security hole in Microsoft's Exchange Server e-mail software.
And before that, spying attacks were known about the maintenance program of the Solarwinds company, which hit US government agencies, among others.
IT security experts have been warning for years that the infrastructure in the West is not adequately prepared for cyber threats.
"We will see cases like this more often in the near future, as hacker groups have already infiltrated many networks via Solarwinds and Exchange," said Rüdiger Trost from the IT security company F-Secure about the pipeline attack.
Big targets such as oil pipelines are more lucrative for the attackers than medium-sized companies because they can extort more ransom there.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210509-99-526596 / 2
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