The government is offering $10 million for information on Colonial Pipeline hackers DarkSide

[midian182]

Recap: The attack that took the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline offline for four days back in May was one of the largest and most high-profile ransomware incidents in history. Now, the US State Department has announced it is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the identification or location of those who lead the group responsible: DarkSide.

The Colonial Pipeline is the primary fuel line serving the US East Coast. It reaches over 5,500 miles and provides around 45 percent of the fuel needs of the region, so a ransomware attack on the operator that resulted in the pipe being shut down for four days was a major event. The attackers encrypted almost 100 gigabytes of the Georgia-based company's data, threatening to release it to the public if it didn't pay the ransom.

The attack led to fuel shortages in 17 states and Washington DC, panic buying, and concerns over how simple it would be for a foreign adversity to cripple vital US infrastructure. This is despite the group responsible, DarkSide, insisting the attack was solely about the money and that it didn't want to create "problems for society."

It was reported that Colonial paid 75 Bitcoin (around $4.4 million on the day of the transaction) in ransom to the Eastern European hackers, possibly using a cyberattack insurance policy.

The US Department of State is now offering $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of key DarkSide members. It will also hand over $5 million "for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction in any country of any individual conspiring to participate in or attempting to participate in a DarkSide variant ransomware incident."

DarkSide later apologized for the "social consequences" resulting from the attack. It also claimed it later lost control over its web servers and a significant part of its funds. The group stopped operating after the incident, though experts believe many members simply rebranded as a new entity called BlackMatter.

If you do have any information you want to hand over to the State Department, fire up your TOR browser and head to: he5dybnt7sr6cm32xt77pazmtm65flqy6irivtflruqfc5ep7eiodiad.onion.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92093-government-offering-10-million-information-colonial-pipeline-hackers.html

 

[Dimitriid]

Hey there, uncle Sam? Yeah just a bit of free advise: you might want to wait until at least a few weeks have passed since you met on an international conference to discuss climate change policies that you're supposedly bringing to the table before going crazy over trying to defend the integrity of a damn gas pipeline.

 

[Hexic]

Hey there, uncle Sam? Yeah just a bit of free advise: you might want to wait until at least a few weeks have passed since you met on an international conference to discuss climate change policies that you're supposedly bringing to the table before going crazy over trying to defend the integrity of a damn gas pipeline.

I can understand the potential optics here, but for the time being (and the foreseeable future) this pipeline is critical to general American functionality for the east coast.

Whether or not the future holding a different reliance on energy doesn’t downplay what happened and all attempts to capture said individuals in the current day - the declining reliance on oil can easily be discussed parallel to the apprehension of individuals who intentionally screwed over most of the east coast.

 

[Dimitriid]

I can understand the potential optics here, but for the time being (and the foreseeable future) this pipeline is critical to general American functionality for the east coast.

Whether or not the future holding a different reliance on energy doesn’t downplay what happened and all attempts to capture said individuals in the current day - the declining reliance on oil can easily be discussed parallel to the apprehension of individuals who intentionally screwed over most of the east coast.

I think it goes beyond just optics into prioritization but it does require a level of skepticism that I should explain further: Biden telling the world that he'll seek out market solutions to climate change is unequivocally and fully incompatible with scaling back on the dependency of infrastructure like gas pipelines.

The tragedy is that he's telling the world Neoliberalism and market solutions will save us while almost at the same time we are experiencing the actual day-to-day effects of Neoliberalism: disrupting a pipe line takes priority to immediately taking oil power generation offline because that would require a non-profit perspective and making money takes precedence to making any of the urgent changes that would meaningfully slow down climate change.

Biden can't have his cake and eat it too and worrying about pursuing security for pipelines instead of worrying about say, forcing rogue States like Texas into submission and getting them on the national grid or forcing all generation to immediately start taking emission generating sources offline has to be a priority beyond "Who can make the most money out of the green agenda?"

 

[Hexic]

Biden can't have his cake and eat it too …

Boom, key right there. I’ve been saying that for awhile. This transcends into multiple facets and it’s not for the betterment of anything else but lining someone’s pockets.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I think it goes beyond just optics into prioritization but it does require a level of skepticism that I should explain further: Biden telling the world that he'll seek out market solutions to climate change is unequivocally and fully incompatible with scaling back on the dependency of infrastructure like gas pipelines.

The tragedy is that he's telling the world Neoliberalism and market solutions will save us while almost at the same time we are experiencing the actual day-to-day effects of Neoliberalism: disrupting a pipe line takes priority to immediately taking oil power generation offline because that would require a non-profit perspective and making money takes precedence to making any of the urgent changes that would meaningfully slow down climate change.

Biden can't have his cake and eat it too and worrying about pursuing security for pipelines instead of worrying about say, forcing rogue States like Texas into submission and getting them on the national grid or forcing all generation to immediately start taking emission generating sources offline has to be a priority beyond "Who can make the most money out of the green agenda?"

LMFAO as if re inventing the grid or switching to magic unicorn energy is as simple as flicking a switch. Do you have any idea how long it takes to change infastructure? The current system of oil took almost a century to build. Even if green energy could supply base power (hint, it cant, not without nuclear power, which green freaks HATE) it would still take decades to rebuild the nations infastructure to handle the move to "green" (so long as you dont look at the manufacturing side or the building numer of wind turbines being sent to landfills because they cant be recycled, SO GREEN!) power.

Perhaps before worrying about "rogue states" like texas (states have rights, get over it sunshine), they should worry about liberal utopias like california that want to mandate EVs while dealing with regular blackouts, their grid is so inadequate that they want to mandate PC idle energy usage to save a few watts, or wonderful states like NY that decide to power the largest city int he US not with clean nuclear power like they've been doing for decades, but instead with natural gas peaker plants. SO GREEN!

Keeping the current infastructure alive to keep the country from imploding is not "neo liberal" thinking, its common sense. Throwing political jargon and buzzwords doesnt make you sound smart, quite the opposite.

 

[brucek]

The US federal government has something like 2.1 million employees. That's more than enough to work on climate change and crime fighting on the same day.

 

[BadThad]

Death penalty for those caught hacking and demanding ransom!

 

[Jack Deth]

I wonder how many of these hackers work for one or more "state" departments?

 

[Jack Deth]

The US federal government has something like 2.1 million employees. That's more than enough to work on climate change and crime fighting on the same day.

Problem is a large percentage of them are incompetent, greedy, or both.