The misuse of a password could have caused the cyberattack on the Colonial pipeline that paralyzed the supply of fuel to part of the United States

Investigations to get to the bottom of how hackers accessed the Colonial Pipeline system is still ongoing, it is possible that it could have been prevented

Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Despite the fact that the CEO of the Colonial Pipeline hinted that the hacking problem was not due to an “easy password”, according to a company specialized in cyber fraud, the attack occurred after an employee used an old password on another website to which the cyber hackers managed to enter and copy the username and password.

This was reported to the Committee on US House of Representatives Homeland Security Charles CamarKal, Vice President of FireEye Mandiant , the security company that is trying to conclude all the investigations regarding the cyber attack suffered by the Colonial Pipeline. In fact, Camarkal’s testimony before the legislators was with Colonial’s CEO, Joseph Blount.

It is still not very clear how exactly the hacking procedure was, and yes indeed it was not the ease of guessing a password, but l or it is believed that the employee enter another website with a Colonial account, your name and password were stolen.

However, Carmakal insists that the password of the account that was stolen was not simple, “rather it was complex” and also had been used in the past in other web pages.

So it is possible that, if a username and password had not been used on another web page, perhaps the attack could have been avoided. In any case, it was known that the Colonial user account that was stolen has been eliminated.

It is known that the Colonial company knew that he was being attacked, upon receiving the message from cybercriminals asking for a ransom to free their computer systems. And as stated by the CEO of the Pipeline, before the congressmen, it only took an hour for them to make the decision to disconnect all the systems and paralyze the pipeline and thus not allow hackers to control anything.

However, the leaders of Colonial Pipeline considered that it was necessary to pay the ransom and “it was one of the most difficult decisions to make,” say Blount.

Hackers originally requested 75 bitcoins, and that amount was paid on May 8, for the moment the value of the cryptocurrency was higher, so it was approximately a total of $ 4.3 million dollars.

In any case, it was known that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had managed to confiscate a large part of the amount paid to hackers . In this regard, Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount praised the FBI for its speed of action and professionalism in intervening in the cyberattack.