President Joe Biden ordered the lifting of restrictions on the transportation of gasoline, given the closure caused by the cyberattack on the pipeline network from the country
Photo: Sergio Souza / Getty Images
Wednesday, November 20
How Biden will deal with the fuel shortage in the United States before the temporary closure of Colonial Pipeline due to the cyberattack
To avoid the shortage of energy in the United States, President Joe Biden ordered the lifting of restrictions on the fuel transport by road , after the closure caused by a cyber attack on Colonial Pipeline, the largest oil pipeline network in the country.
Faced with the threat posed by this situation and in order to lift these restrictions, the president had to resort to the declaration of a regional state of emergency.
The Department of Transportation of The US explained that the measure adopted by Biden will allow trucks that transport gasoline, diesel , aviation fuel and other products to 17 states of the southern and eastern US and the District of Columbia.
The first president was forced to make that decision after Colonial Pipeline had to suspend all its operations on Friday due to the report of a cyber attack .
Biden noted that at the moment there is no evidence that Vladimir Putin’s Russian government is involved in the attack, but said there are indications that the malicious program that was used was on Russian territory. “So far there is no evidence from our intelligence personnel that Russia is involved, although there is evidence that the actors, the ‘ransomware’, is in Russia, said the president .
Sunday night, Colonial reported that its main lines for the transportation of fuel remained out of service and that some smaller pipelines between terminals and delivery points were already operational.
Colonial had to interrupt its operations along its 8, 850 kilometers of pipelines that supply and are essential to supply the populations of the eastern and southern United States.
The Georgia-based company transports up to 2.5 million barrels of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel from the Gulf of Mexico refineries to the south and east of the country.
The company suffered a “ransomware” attack or data hijacking in which at least general a group of hackers blocks access to certain parts or files of a company’s computer systems in exchange for money to release them.
So far the company has not mentioned a possible person responsible, or details on how long the pipelines will be closed, nor how much money are hackers demanding to free their systems.
President Joe Biden was informed on Saturday of this incident, which is already considered What one of the largest ransomware attacks ever made public in the United States .
The White House assured that ag The government’s cybersecurity agencies are doing everything possible so that Colonial can restore fuel transportation as soon as possible, while legislators call for greater regulations to protect the country’s energy infrastructure.
For her part, the White House Assistant Internal Security Adviser assured at a press conference that “no shortage of supplies” and that Colonial has indicated that it has not suffered damage and that it can return to operation relatively quickly.
With information from Bloomberg and Infobae
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