Thanks to a group of nefarious Russian hackers, the east coast of the United States is dealing with a hellacious economic issue.
“Darkside”, a group of ransomware attackers, recently targeted the Colonial pipeline, which supplies the east coast with approximately 45% of all of their gasoline. The group has said that they are not a geopolitical entity, but it bears to mention that they don’t seem to find any time to target entities within the old Soviet Bloc.
Regardless of this distinction, the group’s attack on this integral piece of fuel infrastructure has created havoc for a great many Americans.
In Spartanburg, South Carolina, 78% of outlets were out of gasoline, while Pensacola, Florida, and Charlotte, North Carolina, had 73% and 71% outage rates, respectively, according to data from retail tracker GasBuddy.
About 65% of filling stations in Norfolk, Virginia, have sold out of gasoline, the data showed.
Florida cities south of the panhandle, where most of the state’s population lives, are “looking good” as far as gasoline supplies are concerned, GasBuddy analyst Patrick DeHaan said.
Meanwhile, the White House seemed wholly unconcerned.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki brought Homeland Security advisor Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger to reassure Americans the Biden administration was on top of the crisis, urging Americans to remain calm.
“Right now, there is not a supply shortage,” Sherwood-Randall told reporters at the daily press briefing.
Psaki also noted during the briefing that, “at this point in time, I would just reiterate: We don’t see a supply issue.”
Colonial has stated that they believe that they’ll be able to resume operations by week’s end, but have provided no concrete evidence to back up that claim.
