Colonial Pipeline has cyber-defense systems in place but they were compromised in a ransomware attack, the US company's CEO Joseph Blount said on Tuesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th June, 2021) Colonial Pipeline has cyber-defense systems in place but they were compromised in a ransomware attack, the US company's CEO Joseph Blount said on Tuesday.
"We had cyber-defenses in place but the unfortunate reality is that those defenses were compromised," Blount told US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in a testimony.
He said that hackers from the Darkside group encrypted the company's IT systems by exploiting "the legacy VPN profile that was not intended to be in use."
The ransomware attack caused a brief shutdown of the key pipeline transporting fuel to the US East Coast and forced Colonial to pay around $4.4 million to hackers allegedly based in Russia in exchange for encryption tools.