Colonial Pipeline paid a ransom of $5 million for the ransomware

The US oil pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline was attacked by ransomware earlier, and its entire support system was encrypted and had to be taken offline urgently.

After the support system went offline, it caused serious problems in the supply of refined oil across the United States, and even Joe Biden had to declare that the United States had entered an emergency to deal with the oil crisis.

It is reported that the hacker who launched the attack was from Russia, and the hacker also said frankly that he only wanted money and did not intend to do other damage, and would provide the key as long as Colonial Pipeline paid the money.

While American netizens are discussing whether the Colonial Pipeline should pay the ransom, it was revealed that the company had already paid the ransom to the hackers.

Colonial Pipeline is the largest oil product pipeline transportation company in the United States. Therefore, after the failure of its transportation system, the oil products that affect many states in the United States are supplying and circulating.

Probably, for this reason, Colonial Pipeline immediately started to pay the hacker a ransom after being blackmailed by the hacker in exchange for the key to allow the system to resume operation.

Moreover, the payment method used by hackers to ask for a ransom is not Bitcoin. From some perspectives, Bitcoin is currently easier to track and block exchanges.

The hacker asked Colonial Pipeline to use a more private cryptocurrency for payment. Although the hacker did not disclose the name of the cryptocurrency, we speculated that it was Monero.

For example, Monero (XMR) and Zcoin (ZEC) are latecomers in the cryptocurrency field. These latecomers focus on privacy protection and therefore redesign their operational logic.

Neither Monero nor Zcoin can be fully tracked, so it may be safer for some hackers but may need to withstand currency price fluctuations.

Via: Bloomberg