I n May 2021, the Colonial oil pipeline, an 8,850km piece of energy infrastructure that supplies 45 per cent of all fuel consumed on the US east coast, was held to ransom in a cyber attack. DarkSide, a hacker group, broke into the Colonial Pipeline Company’s IT network and demanded money. The operator shut the pipeline down and panic ensued as millions of Americans rushed to hoard fuel, pushing prices up across the eastern seaboard. Desperate to solve the crisis, the company immediately paid off a $4.4m ransom, but it took six days for the pipeline to be restarted.
The attack is just one example of the cyber threat to energy infrastructure that data shows is escalating. The sector has become a leading target for cyber criminals, now accounting for 16 per cent of officially known attacks, according to systems-protection firm Hornetsecurity. Meanwhile, data from another security company, Check Point, suggests that the energy industry is the second most cyber-attacked sector after research and education.
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