Colonial Pipeline paid nearly $ 5 million ransom to hackers

Colonial Pipeline would have paid more than 4 million euros in ransom to the criminals who had infected the oil pipeline company with ransomware. This is said to have happened within hours of the attack. The company claims not to have paid a ransom.

The amount was transferred to the criminals in cryptocurrency, Anonymous sources say to Bloomberg. After payment, Colonial Pipeline would have been given a decryption tool. It would only have been so slow that the company also had to deploy its own backups to restore the systems. Neither the company nor the US government wanted to respond to Bloomberg about the ransom paid. The company itself has always claimed that no ransom has been paid.

The oil pipeline has been in use again since Thursday. The pipeline is an important part of the United States’ energy infrastructure, transporting 2.5 million barrels of oil every day. Almost half of the US east coast is supplied with fossil fuels by the pipeline. The ransomware attack caused pressure at gas stations, resulting in fuel shortages.

Colonial Pipeline announced on Monday that it had been hit by ransomware. The company has never said who is behind it, although anonymous sources speak about the Russian criminal organization DarkSide. This organization would not only have encrypted the software, but also stole 100GB of data.