If you live on the East Coast and see fuel prices go up soon, there’s a good chance it’s because of the cyberattack that forced the Colonial pipeline, the country’s largest refined products pipeline, to shut down.
According to NBC News, the pipeline, which is owned by a company of the same name, transports 2.5 million barrels of gas, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined products per day.
Colonial Pipeline (the company), which is controlled by companies including Koch Industries and Royal Dutch Shell, affirms it’s responsible for transporting 45% of the East Coast’s fuel supply alone, the outlet stated.
Colonial Pipeline said that after it determined that the cyberattack involved ransomware, it “proactively took certain systems offline to contain the threat, which has temporarily halted all pipeline operations, and affected some of our IT systems.â€.
Colonial Pipeline stated it was taking steps to understand and resolve the issue.