Colonial Pipeline shutdown stirs panic buyers across Eastern seaboard
A ransomware attack hit one of America’s critical fuel arteries Friday, knocking it offline. Colonial Pipeline delivers nearly half of the diesel and gasoline consumed on the East coast.
Bloomberg confirmed Thursday Colonial Pipeline handed over $5 million in cryptocurrency to get the lines up and running again.
Earlier this week, the FBI confirmed that DarkSide, a Russian hacker group is responsible for the attack. We have seen an increased number of cyber attacks against the US government in recent months and many fear this number will continue to rise.
Due to panic buying, gas prices have skyrocketed 20%, reaching a national high of $3 a gallon. According to Patrick De Hann, owner of the app GasBuddy, he said if people don’t stop panic buying, it could take weeks to recover from the shortages.
Areas still reporting outages:
North Carolina 12.3%
Virginia 52%
South Carolina 5.9%
Georgia 50%
Florida 30%
Tennessee 33%
Alabama 9%
West Virginia 7%
Kentucky 3%
Maryland 41%
New Jersey 1%
Mississippi 7%
(These numbers can change by the hour)
With the pipeline up and running, fuel lines will still be long for the foreseeable future until the supply is restored. Anticipate longer delays at the pump.
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