USA pipeline shutdown

With ref to USA 5000 Mile shutdown – what’s going on?

Got hit by ransomware, and showed up yet another piece of important infrastructure with a dismal security practice (seemingly no backup to roll back to).

Or it’s been hit by ransomware and the oil companies have shut it down because they’re enjoying the idea of doubling the price of petrol (which won’t halve when the problem is fixed).

Take your pick. Given what I think of oil, both are equally valid. Suffice to say, ransomware is what started this.

Read a report this morning saying that the hackers didn’t intend to cause chaos, just wanted to make some money – sort of sorry, but not really…

But, WHY is critical infrastructure connected to the internet at all?

But, WHY is critical infrastructure connected to the internet at all?

At a guess because the companies don’t want to pay engineers to drive to every location to fix faults and do maintenance.

How does this work – infected USB stick – bad email – Duff web site – running some kind of game!

I see that some USB sticks have a switch – bit like a old floppy.

Not seen one though.

I see from the reports that there is great concern that fuel prices will rise to about half the European price. Should I feel sorry for them?

It will probably raise the global price of oil and that will lead to inflation – hence the global fall in stock markets today.

At a guess because the companies don’t want to pay engineers to drive to every location to fix faults and do maintenance.

Surely, if the infrastructure is so critical it should have a dedicated and isolated private network to allow this – not random access from North Korea (other pariah states are available).

Surely, if the infrastructure is so critical it should have a dedicated and isolated private network to allow this

I think the American mentality is along the lines of “we’ve made hacking stuff illegal and our laws apply everywhere”.

I’m surprised they haven’t yet declared this some sort of act of economic terrorism.

A bit like us banning guns.

I think the American mentality is along the lines of “we’ve made hacking stuff illegal and our laws apply everywhere”.

Overreach is not limited to that side of the pond.

Like the European mentality of “GDPR etc. And our laws apply everywhere”?

Perhaps Mr B is giving Mr P a friendly call :-)

According to last nights TV news, the pipeline isn’t connected to the internet. The company closed it down. The reason was given as unknown.

What does that mean – news speak for the pipeline now – is not connected to anything!

………………………………………….Pfffft…..

……………………………….

Like the European mentality of “GDPR etc. And our laws apply everywhere”?

Ah, but here we’re running into an interesting little quirk.

The GDPR doesn’t apply “everywhere”. It applies to EU citizens (and others residing in the EU), and it is geographically determined by where the user is, not by where the server is.

They’re basically telling America that if those companies want to provide services to Europeans, then obey European law and not some ridiculous garbage that includes such things as telling people that all your data are belong to us, and legal issues will only be accepted if served in Connecticut or the dark side of the Moon or somewhere equally impractical.

The company closed it down. The reason was given as unknown.

Hmm… Asides from this being a convenient excuse to bump up prices (so any overreaction is potentially lucrative), I can’t say I’ve been paying much attention to what happens to oil in the US.

I see that some USB sticks have a switch – bit like a old floppy.

Not seen one though.

I’ve got an old one – 512MB (somewhere), found it. EasyDisk, faded writing…

I don’t think any of the newer ones I’ve got have that feature.

I don’t think any of the newer ones I’ve got have that feature.

It is a shame, it would be useful to have a read only switch because god knows how much crap Android spews into media that is connected. And once Android has written it’s stuff, it shares the media to background apps like an STD, so there’s all sorts of junk that turns up the instant something is connected.
And then a bunch of apps are like “Media has been inserted, do you want to save everything to this instead now?”.

No, thank you, Android, just look at the files on the device and nothing else, m’kay?

Not to mention a “safe” device for use with public computers. It’s one of the reasons that I used to burn multisession CDs when using the computers in a local library. Could have used a USB key, but as far as I’m aware malware doesn’t tend to attempt to infect CDs during the writing stage; and they’re safe to put in afterwards as they’re treated as read only until Nero Burning ROM is started up…

as far as I’m aware malware doesn’t tend to attempt to infect CDs during the writing stage;

at least one item actively used the auto-boot feature of CDs