Gas shortages live updates – Nearly 90% of Washington, DC’s stations are OUT of fuel because of panic-buying after hack

Gas shortages live updates – Nearly 90% of Washington, DC’s stations are OUT of fuel because of panic-buying after hack

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THERE are only about one out of 10 gas stations in Washington D.C. that still has gas after a massive panic-buy ensued following the gas shortage due to the Colonial Pipeline hack.

By late afternoon on Friday, over 80 percent of gas stations in DC, almost half of those in Virginia, and about 40 percent of stations in Maryland were out of gas.

The gas shortage currently crippling much of the Southeast is expected to last DAYS – despite fuel deliveries resuming.

The pipeline was held hostage by hackers who have identified themselves as a criminal group called the Darkside, who were allegedly paid $5 million to release control back to Colonial Pipeline Co.

The cyberhack, branded an “act of war” by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, forced gas stations along the East Coast to shut up shop due to fuel shortages.

The 5,500 mile Colonial Pipeline, which transports 2.5million barrels of gas per day between Texas and New Jersey, was shut down on Friday evening after a ransomware attack was launched.

The pipeline was back up and running as of 5pm Wednesday, however, officials say it will take a number of days until operations are back to normal.

Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at fuel-savings app GasBuddy, told USA Today people will likely see the gas outage numbers peak over the next two days.

“I think that by Memorial Day or shortly after, that it won’t be such a project to fill your tank back up,” he said.

A Russian crime group named “DarkSide” is allegedly behind the ransomware attack that led to the chaos.

DarkSide targets large corporations for ransom by capturing the victim’s confidential data and threatening to leak it if the ransom isn’t paid.

Colonial Pipeline paid the hacking group nearly $5 million on Friday to release their servers, Bloomberg reported.

Gas shortages have caused concern that there will be major travel issues ahead of Memorial Day Weekend.

Fox 5 in Washington, D.C., is reporting that gas prices in the greater DC area — which includes Virginia and Maryland — have been surging as people continue to stock up on fuel.

This is causing concern that there will be “major travel concerns” for the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend.

  • WAS RUSSIA RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HACK?

    Although no evidence has been found that the Russian government is directly responsible, President Biden issued a warning, saying that his administration is determined to protect the country’s infrastructure.

    “Although there’s evidence that the actor’s ransomware is in Russia, they have some responsibility to deal with them.”

    “This is something that our administration has been tracking extremely carefully, and it’s something it takes very seriously.

    “We have efforts underway with the FBI and DoJ to disrupt and prosecute ransomware criminals.”

  • MIKE POMPEO SAYS US CYBERSCURITY IS ‘SUSCEPTIBLE’

    Mike Pompeo, the former CIA Director under the Trump administration, took to Twitter on Tuesday to criticize the Colonial Pipeline hack.

    “The Colonial Pipeline outage demonstrates how susceptible our cybersecurity and infrastructure systems can be, if left unsecured,” he wrote.

    “We need more energy infrastructure — not less — to defend and protect our country from economic ransomware attacks. Defense must be a top priority.”

  • WHERE IS THE GAS SHORTAGE WORST?

    Of the states experiencing outages, North Carolina has been hit the hardest with 14.7 percent of its gas stations dealing with shortages.

    Gas stations in Virginia and Georgia are also contending with shortages at 9.6 and 9.4 percent respectively.

    About 7.5 percent of South Carolina’s gas stations without gasoline, followed by 3.2 percent in Florida, 1.3 percent in Maryland, 1 percent in Alabama, and 0.7 percent in Tennessee.

  • DOES THE COLONIAL PIPELINE SERVE THE MILITARY?

    Several East Coast states are served by the Colonial Pipeline, and some of them are seeing fuel shortages in the wake of the temporary shutdown.

    90 U.S. military installations are also served by the pipeline.

    In additon, 26 oil refineries are also served by the important pipeline, Bloomberg reports.

  • GAS SHORTAGE CAUSING ANGRY CLASHES OVER FUEL SUPPLY

    Two drivers in Knightdale, North Carolina fought over scarce fuel in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline hack.

    A woman driving a white sedan is said to have tried to cut in line as motorists queued up and then she screamed obscenities and spat on a man who refused to let her in, according to a witness.

    The man is then said to have jumped out of his vehicle, spat on the woman in return, and started grabbing with her, with the scuffle being caught on video.

  • GAS SHORTAGE ‘COULD LAST WEEKS’

    Despite the Colonial Pipeline resuming operations late afternoon on Wednesday, an expert is warning that it could take “weeks” before gas supplies return to normal levels.

    GasBuddy’s senior petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan told Yahoo: “This situation has spiraled out of control.

    “It’s kind of like a game of whack-a-mole where stations fill up their inventories, and then people decimate the inventory.

    “I don’t think that’s going to stop for a week, maybe two weeks, and then fully back to normal in three to four weeks.”

  • WHAT GROUP IS ALLEGEDLY BEHIND THE COLONIAL PIPELINE ATTACK?

    The Colonial Pipeline was hit by a cyberattack on Friday.

    A Russian crime group named “DarkSide” is allegedly behind the ransomware attack that led to the chaos.

    DarkSide targets large corporations for ransom by capturing the victim’s confidential data and threatening to leak it if the money isn’t paid.

  • DARKSIDE GROUP SAYS IT MEANT TO ‘MAKE MONEY,’ NOT CAUSE COLONIAL PIPELINE CHAOS

    DarkSide, the group behind the Colonial Pipeline hack, claims they didn’t mean to cause chaos with the cyberattack.

    The group, which is made up of a cohort of veteran hackers, compromised the 5,500-mile pipeline with a ransomware attack last Friday.

    DarkSide published a statement to the dark web after the FBI named the group as being behind the hack.

    “Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society,” the statement read.

    “From today, we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the future.”

  • PEOPLE MAY BE PANIC BUYING GAS AFTER COLONIAL PIPELINE SHUTDOWN

    By Tuesday afternoon, the Colonial Pipeline hack and shutdown had led people to panic-buy gas.

    Reports of lack of product and increasing prices began emerging and gas stations in several states began running out of supplies.

    According to price-tracking app GasBuddy, here are the percentages of stations that had run out of gas by state by Tuesday:

    North Carolina – 9.7 percent
    Virginia – 7.9 percent
    Georgia – 6.5 percent
    South Carolina – 4.3 percent
    Florida – 2.9 percent

  • DOES THE COLONIAL PIPELINE SERVE THE MILITARY?

    Several East Coast states are served by the Colonial Pipeline, and some of them are seeing fuel shortages in the wake of the temporary shutdown.

    90 U.S. military installations are also served by the pipeline.

    In additon, 26 oil refineries are also served by the important pipeline, Bloomberg reports.

  • NEWT GINGRICH SAYS HACKERS BEHIND COLONIAL PIPELINE SHUTDOWN SHOULD BE EXECUTED FOR ‘ACT OF WAR’

    During an interview with Sean Hannity on Monday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that he believes Joe Biden should be authorized “to order the killings of anybody overseas” found to be responsible for Friday’s hack.

    “On the national security part, let me say, we ought to pass a law immediately that makes this kind of hacking subject to a death penalty.

    “And the law should include a provision that the president through a judicial process should be able to order the killing of anybody overseas who is doing this,” Gingrich said.

    The Republican later added that a “great country cannot allow people to come in and have no consequences and then wait for the next attack.”

  • EXPERT WARNS THAT SYSTEMS THAT CONTROL PIPELINES SHOULD NOT BE CONNECTED TO INTERNET

    Mike Chapple, a former computer scientist with the National Security Agency, said systems that control pipelines shouldn’t be connected to the internet.

    This leaves them vulnerable to cyber intrusions, he said, after the Colonial Pipeline was hacked, leading to a major disruption in service.

    “The attacks were extremely sophisticated and they were able to defeat some pretty sophisticated security controls, or the right degree of security controls weren’t in place,” Chapple said.

  • COLONIAL PIPELINE MAKING PROGRESS AFTER SHUTDOWN

    The Colonial Pipeline Company issued a statement Tuesday evening about their effort to get the critical infrastructure and their system back online.

    “Colonial Pipeline continues to make forward progress in our around-the-clock efforts to return our system to service, with additional laterals operating manually to deliver existing inventories to markets along the pipeline,” the statement says.

    “Markets experiencing supply constraints and/or not serviced by other fuel delivery systems are being prioritized.”

    “We are collaborating with the Department of Energy (DOE) to evaluate market conditions to support this prioritization.”

  • COLONIAL PIPELINE CYBER ATTACK COMES AFTER TWO OTHER SIMILAR ATTACKS

    The Colonial Pipeline was hit with a cyberattack on Friday, and it’s not yet clear who launched the attack.

    The Pipeline was temporarily shut down after the hack.

    The attack comes just months after two other major attacks on American computer networks – the Solar Winds hack, which was believed to have been carried out by Russia, and an hack attempt on Microsoft, which is thought to be the work of China.

  • HOW MANY STATES ARE SUPPLIED GAS BY THE COLONIAL PIPELINE?

    Gas prices are surging in some areas and supplies are running out entirely at some pumps after a cyberattack last week on the Colonial Pipeline.

    The Colonial Pipeline supplies 100 million gallons of fuel every day to 18 different states.

    It also serves 90 US military installations and 26 oil refineries.

    Average retail gas prices in the US have risen to almost $3 per gallon after the pipeline was temporarily shut down in the wake of the attack.

  • WHY IS THERE A FUEL SHORTAGE AFTER THE HACK?

    The Colonial Pipeline was hit with a cyberattack last week, and its temporary shut down may lead to fuel shortages in several regions.

    The hack has led to a rise in gas prices as supplies drop along the pipeline’s main supply lines along the East Coast.  

    Some gas stations across the US were reportedly running out of fuel on Tuesday, May, 11.

    North Carolina declared a state of emergency to mitigate any disruption, and AAA spokesman, Jeanette McGee, said Tuesday: “Areas including Mississippi, Tennessee and the east coast from Georgia into Delaware are most likely to experience limited fuel availability and price increases, as early as this week.”

  • AMERICANS DEMAND FOURTH CHECK AFTER GAS SHORTAGE

    Americans are demanding a fourth stimulus check after the Colonial Pipeline hack.

    Following the gas shortage, some people have asked for more cash due to the inconvenience and potential hike in prices.

    “We need another stimulus check after this gas line bs,” one person wrote on Twitter.

    Meanwhile, another echoed the sentiments, demanding: “Can we expect a third stimulus check for gas money$$$??”

  • TRUMP MOCKED BIDEN OVER FUEL CRISIS

    Former President Donald Trump mocked Joe Biden, comparing him to Jimmy Carter and saying the commander in chief “created the gas and border crises.”

    Taking to his personal website on Wednesday, former President Trump, 74, claimed Biden “has had the worst start of any president in United States history, and someday, they will compare future disasters to the Biden Administration.”

    “I see that everybody is comparing Joe Biden to Jimmy Carter,” Trump wrote. “It would seem to me that is very unfair to Jimmy Carter.

    “Jimmy mishandled crisis after crisis, but Biden has CREATED crisis after crisis. First there was the Biden Border Crisis (that he refuses to call a Crisis), then the Biden Economic Crisis, then the Biden Israel Crisis, and now the Biden Gas Crisis.”

    While it was clear Trump didn’t think much of Carter’s time in the White House, he ended his post by stating “Jimmy was better” than Biden.

  • BIDEN SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER TARGETING CYBER THREATS

    In the wake of the Colonial Pipeline hack, President Biden signed an executive order aimed at improving cybersecurity.

    “The Colonial Pipeline incident is a sobering reminder that our nation faces sophisticated cyber threats,” the White House tweeted.

    The executive order will improve protections on federal networks and update outdated cybersecurity.

  • DARKSIDE CLAIMS THEY AIMED TO MAKE MONEY NOT CAUSE CHAOS

    DarkSide, the group behind the Colonial Pipeline hack, claims they didn’t mean to cause chaos with the cyberattack.

    The group, which is made up of a cohort of veteran hackers, compromised the 5,500-mile pipeline with a ransomware attack last Friday.

    DarkSide published a statement to the dark web after the FBI named the group as being behind the hack.

    “Our goal is to make money and not creating problems for society,” the statement read.

    “From today, we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the future.”

  • NORTH CAROLINA WILL INVESTIGATE PRICE GOUGING COMPLAINTS

    North Carolina will investigate the 622 price gouging complaints it received regarding the gas shortages, the state Attorney General announced.

    “Each complaint will cause an investigation and we will do that investigation. If if I find price gougers, I’ll hold them accountable,” Attorney General Josh Stein told CNN.

    He explained that price gouging laws in the state are come into force when a state of emergency is declared – which Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday evening.

    “What it prohibits is sellers taking advantage of people’s desperation to make a quick buck. 

    “So if a gas station has their supply and underground storage tank that they pay X dollars on, they can’t raise the price on that just because folks are desperate,” Stein said.

  • RUSSIA NOT INVOLVED IN THE RANSOMWARE ATTACK, BIDEN SAYS

    President Joe Biden told Americans he was “confident” that Vladimir Putin or the Russian government were not behind the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.

    “I am confident that I’ve read the report of the FBI accurately. And they say they were not, he was not, the government was not,” he said.

    “But we do have strong reason to believe that the criminals who did the attack are living in Russia.

    “We have been in direct communications with Moscow about the imperative for responsible countries to take decisive action against these ransomware networks. 

    We’re also going to pursue a measure to disrupt their ability to operate. And our Justice Department has launched a new task force dedicated to prosecuting ransomware attackers to the full extent of the law,” Biden continued. 

  • WHAT DID JOE BIDEN SAY ABOUT THE GAS SUPPLY BEING BACK?

    President Joe Biden celebrated the news of the fuel supply flowing again, but told Americans: “it is not like flicking on a light switch”.

    He urged people to be calm and not panic buy, while encouraging gas stations not to hike up prices.

    “They should be reaching full operational capacity as we speak, as I speak to you right now. That is good news,” he said on Thursday.

    “But I want to be clear. You will not feel the effects at the pump immediately. This is not like flicking on a light switch.”

  • DID COLONIAL PIPELINE PAY THE HACKERS RANSOM?

    The Colonial Pipeline Co. reportedly paid a $5 million ransom to the organised crime group known as ‘DarkSide’ to release the fuel-shipping system.

    According to Bloomberg, “Once they received the payment, the hackers provided the operator with a decrypting tool to restore its disabled computer network.

    “The tool was so slow that the company continued using its own backups to help restore the system, one of the people familiar with the company’s efforts said.”

    The hack crippled the system for several days, causing chaos for the Southeastern region’s fuel supply.

  • “DON’T FILL UP PLASTIC BAGS WITH PETROL”

    A US safety body has told people not to fill up plastic bags with petrol and only to use approved containers, as drivers continue to fight over fuel.

    The US Consumer Product Safety Commission also tweeted: “When using a gas canister, never pour gasoline over or near an open flame.

    “Flame jetting is a sudden and possibly violent flash fire that can occur when pouring flammable liquids from a container.”





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