Tag Archive for: pipelines

U.S. to require energy pipelines report computer hacks or face fines

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Holding tanks are seen in an aerial photograph at Colonial Pipeline’s Dorsey Junction Station in Woodbine, Maryland, U.S. May 10, 2021. REUTERS/Drone Base/File Photo

Energy pipeline companies will have to report cybersecurity incidents to the U.S. government under a new directive that will be announced by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Thursday, senior government officials said.

The officials, who asked to remain unidentified, said the directive will impose fines on pipeline companies that fail to report incidents within 12 hours and mandate that the pipeline companies designated a cybersecurity coordinator to report incidents and coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

“This is the first time there’s mandatory reporting of cybersecurity incidents,” said one of the four senior officials that spoke to journalists ahead of the directive’s unveiling.

The new directive comes after hackers earlier this month carried out a ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline Co (COLPI.UL), the United States’ biggest fuel pipeline system, that caused supply disruptions, price spikes and panic buying across the East Coast earlier this month. read more

The directive was first reported by The Washington Post earlier this week.

The hackers, alleged to be operating out of Russia, held Colonial Pipeline’s computer network hostage and successfully extorted millions of dollars in digital currency. The incident has bumped the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure to the top of the national agenda.

The U.S. government has traditionally relied on private industry to flag hacks to officials, but is shifting toward mandatory reporting amid a number of major intrusions.

Similar mandates might appear in other industries. Speaking Wednesday, the officials said the new pipeline mandate is being eyed as a potential model for other sectors as well.

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Hack prompts new security regulations for US pipelines

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WASHINGTON — The federal government will issue cybersecurity regulations in the coming days for U.S. pipeline operators following a ransomware attack that led to fuel shortages across much of the Eastern Seaboard.

The Transportation Security Administration, which oversees the nation’s network of pipelines, is expected to issue a security directive this week that will address some of the issues raised by the Colonial Pipeline shutdown, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

The directive will include a requirement that pipeline companies report cyber incidents to the federal government, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the proposal has not yet been publicly released.

It addresses, to an extent, the ransomware attack that led to the shutdown of the pipeline this month, but it also reflects a broader Biden administration focus on cybersecurity after a series of damaging intrusions by overseas hackers.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to confirm any specifics of the pending directive, issuing a statement that said TSA and another component of the agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, are working with private companies to address cyber threats. “The Biden Administration is taking further action to better secure our nation’s critical infrastructure,” it said.

The directive, first reported by The Washington Post, is expected to prompt concern, if not outright opposition, from private operators wary of increased government regulation.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and gas industry, said in a statement that its members are working with the administration to develop reporting policies and that any new regulations should include “reciprocal information sharing and liability protections.”

Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and former executive director of the congressionally mandated Cyberspace Solarium Commission, said federal officials have told him the pipeline order will have two stages.

The first will immediately mandate that any cybersecurity incidents are reported to the federal government, while the second, coming later, would require that pipeline companies…

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US officials warned major pipelines to secure systems before Colonial attack

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For more than two years before the Colonial petroleum pipeline shutdown on Friday, US officials repeatedly warned major pipelines that they were increasingly vulnerable to hackers as they moved their operations online.

As recently as February 2020, US cyber security officials warned of an attack on an unnamed natural gas compression facility that mirrored some of the problems faced by Colonial.

In that case, hackers broke into the back-office network and moved into its operations control system, locking up computers on both sides and leaving staff unable to see data from the facility, which had to be shut down.

Officials warned at the time that pipelines should keep their back office separate from their operations. It was useful advice for Colonial Pipeline, whose 5,500 miles of pipes supply half the fuel used by the US east coast.

But on Monday, the White House confirmed that a similar scenario had played out at Colonial, forcing it to shut itself down to ensure that hackers “could not migrate from business computer systems to those that control and operate the pipeline”.

Sujeet Shenoi, professor of computer science at the University of Tulsa and a former nuclear engineer, said that hackers often found the easiest people to attack were in the back office, and that some critical infrastructure companies now had a three-strike rule for employees who breached cyber security procedures.

He added that infrastructure companies had moved quickly to digitise their operations, but had not fully woken up to the scale of the risk of connecting their corporate IT systems to their operational control systems. “This is like a 9/11 and more. Critical infrastructure groups are not ready to respond.”

The Department of Homeland Security set up the Pipeline Cybersecurity Initiative in October 2018 to try to protect more than 2.7m miles of oil and gas pipelines from attack as their owners started to connect them to the internet so that they could monitor operations remotely.

Like its peers, Colonial Pipeline has spent years transforming itself from a traditional utility into a data-driven, digital company. Major pipelines increasingly rely on computers to monitor flows and…

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