Everything You Need To Know About the Pipeline Hack

Colonial Pipeline, a company that runs a 5,500 mile-long gas conduit that serves the eastern seaboard of the U.S., announced last weekend that it had been the victim of a ransomware attack.

As a precaution the company shut down the pipeline, despite the fact that the cyberattack only affected its enterprise IT network, not the network responsible for controlling the pipeline. The ransomware attack and the panic buying that followed caused gas shortages across several states. 

Newt Gingrich claimed that President Joe Biden should be authorized to murder the hackers via drone strike. Several observers baselessly accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of being behind the attack, or at least being responsible for tacitly approving of it. 

Meanwhile, Biden himself clearly dismissed these accusations saying the US government does "not believe the Russian government was involved in this attack."

In any case, this was a very impactful ransomware attack, and on this week's CYBER podcast, we discuss everything you need to know about it.