Mwalimu-G
Elder Lister
Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu
'They’re here to stay'
In the latest assault, a 5,500-mile pipeline from Texas to New Jersey that carries 2.5 million barrels a day of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and home heating oil was shut down over a ransomware attack. Ransomware is software used to take a computer system hostage until someone hands over the ransom money. This is, however, far from the only recent attack that has exposed the chronic weakness of US networks to outside attacks, including from foreign intelligence services.
The White House last month imposed sanctions on Russia over the SolarWinds cyberattack — a massive hack that it said gave Russian intelligence agencies the capacity to spy on more than 16,000 global computer systems. In March, Microsoft blamed a state-sponsored entity in China for targeting hundreds of thousands of users around the world, a breach that also led to White House and US government investigations. In February, in a scene ripped from the script of a disaster movie, a hacker tried to poison a Florida city's water supply.
Government efforts to mitigate such attacks often come across as closing the stable door once the hackers have bolted. The Biden administration is now finalizing an executive order that seeks to force companies to upgrade their infrastructure. It would spell out new cybersecurity requirements for firms that do business with the federal government -- but it probably would not have staved off the Colonial Pipeline attack, which threatens to spike gas prices.
Some critics have accused the President of failing to include a huge push to upgrade cybersecurity in his infrastructure plan, which includes tens of billions of dollars for areas such as home health care for sick and elderly Americans. But Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told CBS News on Sunday that the government would work with private firms to secure the country's vital networks. “Unfortunately, these sorts of attacks are becoming more frequent. They're here to stay,” she said.
