Colonial Pipeline Ransomware and You

    I'm sure everyone has heard about the Colonial Pipeline the past couple of weeks, most of you probably filled up your cars because of it. On May 7th the Colonial Pipeline company disclosed that it had suffered a cyberattack and that the company was shutting down the pipeline to assess the extent of the damage. It was soon clear to cybersecurity professionals that the the Colonial Pipeline company was the victim of a ransomware attack by a Russian based cyber criminal group called DarkSide. Ransomware is software that encrypts all of a victims files and holds them for ransom. DarkSide is particularly interesting because they have a code of ethics and maintain a sense of professionalism with their "customers". Cool, but why should you care? You should care because ransomware is becoming more sophisticated, more popular and more profitable. Companies like Colonial are incentivised to pay the ransom; this payment creates a feedback loop where cyber criminals reinvest that ransom money into bigger ransomware attacks. The next victim could be your power company or your university. Click here to read more, or here for a more technical ransomware breakdown.