Explained: Cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline in United States could drive up fuel prices globally
The US government declared a state of emergency on Sunday in an attempt to keep fuel supply lines running after a cyberattack on the country’s largest fuel pipeline system threatened to disrupt supply and raise prices.
The declaration will relax controls on transporting fuels by road to contain the fallout from the continuing shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, that supplies nearly half the fuel consumed by the populous US east coast after its systems were compromised by a ransomware attack on Friday.
What happened?
The Colonial Pipeline Company was forced to shut down its entire automated pipeline system after the ransomware attack, in which unidentified hackers took more than 100 gigabytes of data, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the incident.
