National, Regional and Local News

[ti-amie]

Speaking of infrastructure...

From Arkansas







Gee if the South secedes who is going to fix those bridges? Thank goodness POTUS is making sure the funds go where they're supposed to and into someone's off shore account.

[ti-amie]

Mental health issues.

[ti-amie]

Ransomware attack on D.C. police resumes with more internal files released

By
Peter Hermann and Dalton Bennett

May 11, 2021 at 6:58 p.m. EDT

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Hackers who apparently infiltrated the D.C. police department’s computer network and went quiet for more than a week have published additional personnel files of officers, revealing sensitive information.

The group, called Babuk, also threatened to reveal documents on criminal investigations, secret informants and gang members if the District does not pay it a ransom. It posted a password-protected file that it said contained such documents.

“You still have the ability to stop it,” the group wrote in its latest message to police. As of Tuesday night, the group had not posted the password to that file.

District officials did not respond Tuesday evening to a request for comment on the latest release of files.

City officials have confirmed that personnel files previously made public by the group were genuine, and they warned more than 3,600 officers that their personal information had been compromised and advised them to put fraud alerts on their accounts.

In an email sent to members of the department last month, Police Chief Robert J. Contee III also said those affected directly by the data theft would be contacted individually and offered guidance. “I recognize this is extremely stressful and concerning to our members,” Contee wrote.

Officials also said they had stopped further theft of data, though it appears Babuk had already stolen a trove of documents.

The FBI has been helping in the investigation.

The files the hacking group has released thus far are those generated when officers applied to the force. Each one contains hundreds of pages and includes results of polygraph tests, financial information, home addresses, medical histories, interviews with character references and criminal background checks.

The group also claims that it has files containing information that would expose confidential informants and those with titles such as “known shooters,” “most violent person,” “RAP feuds,” “gang conflict report” and “strategic crime briefings.”

District officials have said little publicly about the intrusion and their efforts to combat it. They have not commented on how much money Babuk is demanding to delete the information or whether the District intends to pay.

The group first made contact with the District in late April but later took down posts on its website referring to D.C. police.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pu ... story.html

[ti-amie]

Fuel shortages crop up in Southeast, gas prices climb after pipeline hack
While Colonial Pipeline works to restore service after last week’s cyberattack, some gas stations in Virginia, Georgia, Florida and other states are reporting dry pumps and long lines

By
Taylor Telford, Will Englund and Rory Laverty
May 11, 2021 at 6:05 p.m. EDT

Lines of panicked drivers overwhelmed gas stations in the Southeast on Tuesday, as rising prices fed fears of shortages in the aftermath of a ransomware attack that forced the nation’s largest fuel pipeline offline.

In Atlanta, 1 of every 5 gas stations was reported to be out of fuel Tuesday evening.

“Look how crazy we’re all getting, over every little thing,” said Allan Hardy, a plumber who had driven from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Wilmington, N.C., and saw long lines at every service station on the road, save for those that had already run out of gas. “And the only reason this shortage isn’t worse is that a lot of people aren’t working right now. Today it’s our oil pipeline, but what will it be tomorrow? If this kind of thing comes at another time, you just can’t gauge how bad it might get.”

In Washington, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the Southeast can expect a “crunch” that will take several days to alleviate.

“We have gasoline,” she said during a White House briefing. “We just have to get it to the right places. And that’s why I think the next couple of days will be challenging.”

She said Colonial Pipeline officials had told her that a decision on a “full restart” could come as soon as Wednesday evening.

The Colonial Pipeline system, which moves about 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel, shut down Friday after hackers thought to be based in the former Soviet Union infiltrated servers and encrypted its data, demanding a fee to restore access. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was at the White House briefing, said American organizations have lost more than $350 million this year as a result of ransomware attacks.

“The threat is not imminent,” he said. “It is upon us.”

Now consumers are seeing some of the fallout as Colonial pushes to resume service by the end of the week.



As of Tuesday, governors in North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia had declared states of emergency and taken steps to relax fuel transport rules to ease pain at the pump.

More than 7 percent of gas stations in Virginia, 8 percent in North Carolina and 5 percent in Georgia were without fuel late Tuesday afternoon, according to Patrick De Haan, an oil analyst at Gas Buddy. A number of stations in Florida, Alabama and South Carolina also reported dry pumps. De Haan said fuel demand in these states spiked 40 percent on Monday, and cautioned against panic-buying, which will only exacerbate the shortages.

“It is vital that motorists do not overwhelm the system by filling their tanks,” De Haan said in analysis.

But plenty of motorists weren’t listening.

The owner of Masonboro Country Store in Wilmington, Musa Agil, said lines began forming just after 6 a.m. and had not abated all day, blocking the flow of traffic on two-lane Masonboro Loop Road. He spent the day “managing traffic and trying to keep the peace” as some motorists cut lines and others filled up a dozen tanks and jugs.

By 3 p.m. Agil was down to his last 200 gallons and told the packed parking lot that he would soon have to shut down. “Some people are selfish, taking more gas than they need,” he said. “But most people are just scared.”

Granholm said there is “no cause for hoarding gasoline” because the pipeline will be “substantially” back online by the weekend. But local news outlets from Florida to North Carolina reported long lines and dry pumps.

The national average for a gallon of gasoline stood at $2.98 on Tuesday, according to AAA. That’s an 8-cent jump on the week, and a penny shy of prices not seen since November 2014.

Granholm had a warning for service station operators: “We will have no tolerance for price-gouging,” she said, and she urged consumers to inform their state attorney general’s office if they suspect it is taking place.

Some Republican officeholders took shots at the Biden administration over the shutdown, despite earlier reticence among some in Congress to criticize former President Trump’s close relationship with Vladimir Putin. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) told Fox News, “The Biden administration must finally step up and acknowledge that their weak stance on Russia has real-world consequences.”

At a gas station just down the road from Agil’s, drivers spread blame for the debacle all around: at the Biden administration; at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and the Green New Deal; at the gas stations and oil companies supposedly hoarding and gouging; and at the Russians and their hackers. Finally one man in a black pickup truck pointed the finger somewhere closer to home.

“This is our fault,” Devin Singer of Wilmington said. “This whole thing. The people’s fault. Same thing with the whole toilet paper shortage. Everybody wants something and nobody has it, so we all freak out and then nobody can get it. It’s mass hysteria.”

Mayorkas said the Biden administration is prepared, if necessary, to waive the Jones Act, which normally forbids foreign-flagged ships from carrying cargoes between U.S. ports. The Federal Railroad Administration is analyzing the possibility of shipping gasoline or jet fuel by train, Granholm said.

“These are not easy solutions,” she cautioned. “The pipe is the best way to go.”

The Colonial Pipeline carries fuel from Gulf Coast refineries to customers on the East Coast. The company says the pipeline provides fuel for 50 million Americans and several major airports.

“This shutdown will have implications on both gasoline supply and prices, but the impact will vary regionally. 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,” Jeanette McGee, AAA spokeswoman, said in a statement. “These states may see prices increase three to seven cents this week.”

The FBI issued a statement confirming that DarkSide, a criminal ransomware group based in Eastern Europe, was behind the cyberattack.

Ransomware attacks have become a global scourge, affecting banks, hospitals, universities and municipalities in recent years. Almost 2,400 organizations in the United States were victimized last year alone, one security firm reported. But the attackers are increasingly targeting industrial sectors because these firms are more willing to pay up to regain control of their systems, experts say.

Roughly 43 percent of infrastructure organizations victimized by such attacks submit to ransom demands, more than any other industry, according to the Sophos 2021 “State of Ransomware” report. The report said that 64 percent of infrastructure organizations surveyed saw a spike in cyberattacks in 2020 and that 57 percent of IT managers felt such attacks had become too sophisticated for them to fend off effectively on their own.

“The unfortunate truth is that infrastructure today is so vulnerable that just about anyone who wants to get in can get in,” Dan Schiappa, Sophos chief product officer, said in comments emailed to The Post. He called infrastructure an easy and lucrative target. “They’re hitting where it hurts, hedging bets on a large payout.”

“In cyberspace,” Mayorkas said, “one is only as strong as one’s weakest link.”

Analysts have focused on the vulnerabilities of America’s aging infrastructure; the Colonial Pipeline system was installed in the 1970s. But some warn that new technologies are also at risk of cyberattack.

Power grid infrastructure is a likely target, said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst with Raymond James. The principal advantages of the smart grid — digitization and decentralization — also offer more pathways for cybercriminals to target, he said.

Elias Bou-Harb, an associate professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, has studied electric vehicle charging stations, and in an unpublished paper he writes: “The EV charging ecosystem — one of the world’s most proliferating ecosystems — suffers from critical vulnerabilities within its most fundamental entities.” In the rush to install charging stations across the country, he wrote, vendors have paid too little attention to keeping them secure from hackers.

Laverty reported from Wilmington.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... -pipeline/

[ti-amie]

Uh...

[ponchi101]

Sorry. Not the Suez canal? It is not just agricultural products. Commodities, equipment, lots of manufacturing goes up and down the Miss-Missouri waterway. It is vital for the American economy.
Months to repair? I wonder which would be more economical: blow the bridge down and remove it, or the losses of months of the Mississippi being shut down.

[ti-amie]

The price of everything is going to go through the roof.

I wonder if that type of steel work is still done in the US though?

[mmmm8]

But we don't need no infrastructure!

[Suliso]

But we don't need no infrastructure!

It's completely overrated. I think you could use another tax cut, though.

[ponchi101]

Overrated? When I go to the USA from Colombia, sure, the roads look fine, the bridges look fine. The airports are an embarrassment (mostly), but it is OK.
Then you go from Europe to the USA, and the roads don't look that great. Germans would laugh at most roads.
And I am really puzzled here: you have a country with a $30 Trillion debt, and you want MORE tax cuts? You yourself said it before: why simply do not CUT ALL TAXES and print money? Or are you joking?

[Suliso]

I thought my sarcasm was obvious...

[ponchi101]

Glad to see I am not the only one that is emoji-impaired...

[mmmm8]

Just for 100% clarity, I was also being sarcastic

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

Why not go one step further in the cruelty and ask them to choose CALIBER, number of riflemen, blindfolded or not or, if they choose the chair, choose voltage and AC or DC.
All these GOP governors would fail any psychological test if they were to submit to one.