The Eastern European hackers responsible for the hack, who compromised the energy company’s pipeline, were paid $5 million in ransom by the Colonial Pipeline group.
Based on reports from two different sources close to the situation, the gasoline, jet, and diesel fuel company paid the ransom to “DarkSide” earlier this week. The deposit made to the hackers enables the pipeline to get back online, it may still be several days before the supply is back to normal in the affected regions of the southeast.
This is an excerpt from the report:
“Colonial Pipeline Co. paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country’s largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the transaction,” Bloomberg noted Thursday.
The company paid the ransom in “untraceable cryptocurrency,” according to the outlet, and the Biden administration was aware that the company intended to pay the $5 million to hackers the White House suggested, Wednesday, could be Russian or affiliated with Russia. The group, which admitted they were responsible for locking up Colonial Pipeline’s servers on Monday, claims they are not affiliated with any government and that their motivation is primarily financial, not political.
Media outlets insisted, earlier this week, that Colonial Pipeline had no intention of paying the nearly $5 million that DarkSide demanded to release the clogged server. Fox Business reported Wednesday that “the pipeline operator refused to pay, enlisting help from the Department of Energy, as well as federal, state and local authorities instead.”
The White House did say that they did not pressure Colonial Pipeline to pay any ransom, though, on Monday, a deputy National Security Advisor admitted that “companies are often in a difficult position if their data is encrypted and they do not have backups and cannot recover the data.”
The FBI does not advise paying a ransom to hackers, as it is likely to encourage further attacks.
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