Cyberattack Forces Closure of Largest U.S. Refined-Fuel Pipeline

[The Heretic]

Wow, melted the outer skins off that Hummer...

This dude deserves a Darwin Award

If SHTF there will be more people die from stupidity than from SHTF.

 

[nwslopoke]

Automation. Gotta love it. When the machines say, no.

 

[Dinglenutz]

If SHTF there will be more people die from stupidity than from SHTF.

I'll probably spend the first month just sitting here eating beans and watching the shenanigans.

 

[Ridge Walker]

If SHTF there will be more people die from stupidity than from SHTF.

Well thats what happens when you have a society where the most gifted and capable can't afford to have children because they are paying the criminals, the shiftless, and incompetents to reproduce. You end up with a lot more of them.

Seems kinda like devolution instead of evolution.

Criminality, stupidity and incompetence should be more painfull, not be rewarded.

Maybe then the S wouldn't even have to HTF.

 

[Dinglenutz]

Seems kinda like devolution instead of evolution.

Survival of the fittest just means fittest for the environment; we have succeeded in creating an environment that encourages exactly the people who are breeding. They are, for this highly artificial environment, the fittest for reproduction. How that's gonna work out in the longer term is possibly a little iffy but it's sorta like the market. If it seems wrong, it just means it's responding to factors we didn't take into account, it's never actually wrong.

But then I'm the guy who says that a missed schedule is due to the schedule being incorrect. ** shrug **

 

[Ridge Walker]

Survival of the fittest just means fittest for the environment; we have succeeded in creating an environment that encourages exactly the people who are breeding. They are, for this highly artificial environment, the fittest for reproduction. How that's gonna work out in the longer term is possibly a little iffy but it's sorta like the market. If it seems wrong, it just means it's responding to factors we didn't take into account, it's never actually wrong.

But then I'm the guy who says that a missed schedule is due to the schedule being incorrect. ** shrug **

When the SHTF the culling will begin. Nature hates an imbalance...

 

[The Heretic]

Survival of the fittest just means fittest for the environment;

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change". Charles Darwin

 

[Certaindeaf]

Well thats what happens when you have a society where the most gifted and capable can't afford to have children because they are paying the criminals, the shiftless, and incompetents to reproduce. You end up with a lot more of them.

Seems kinda like devolution instead of evolution.

Criminality, stupidity and incompetence should be more painfull, not be rewarded.

Maybe then the S wouldn't even have to HTF.

I heard someone filled up a Hefty bag with gasoline.

 

[Flopsweat]

Read post #63

The equipment used for most work on these control systems is proprietary. Yes it can be connected to the internet, but those that have been issued that level of equipment live by different rules. My black travel bag equipment went back to either IT or a metrology lab at least twice a year. Had to pee in the jar at least once a month to get through the customer's front gate. Not quite on topic, but airports were fun. Lots of strange looks from TSA & questions about the electronics. Foreign airports took security to higher levels. Forgot to mention my electric shaver and was held in limbo for a short time.

Someone else has those problems now.

Foreverlost,

LOL, that doesn't explain jack bubblegum. Nice to hear part of your resume, but every encrypted multi-factor logon laptop I've been issued, no matter how secure the environment it could access, we were never prohibited from accessing "the internet" as you say. If you don't want to tell us what you meant that's OK. I just wanted to give you a fair chance to explain yourself.

 

[Dinglenutz]

Nice to hear part of your resume, but every encrypted multi-factor logon laptop I've been issued, no matter how secure the environment it could access, we were never prohibited from accessing "the internet" as you say.

Some of ours are.

The machine I work on daily since the end of 2020 connects with a copper wire into the back of a dedicated hardware device, which connects to a LAN that has no internet access via a secure tunnel ... across the internet. But none of the machines can get to google.com or any other routable address.

The way things get exploited in real life has essentially no semblance to what the movies show us. It's either Sally in HR clicks a link (from the internet, to the internet) or Ted in sales visits a site he shouldn't or Betty in accounting plugs in a USB stick she found in the parking lot. Something like that. Social engineering, and then the initial connection is from the inside out.

 

[The Heretic]

Some of ours are.

The machine I work on daily since the end of 2020 connects with a copper wire into the back of a dedicated hardware device, which connects to a LAN that has no internet access via a secure tunnel ... across the internet. But none of the machines can get to google.com or any other routable address.

The way things get exploited in real life has essentially no semblance to what the movies show us. It's either Sally in HR clicks a link (from the internet, to the internet) or Ted in sales visits a site he shouldn't or Betty in accounting plugs in a USB stick she found in the parking lot. Something like that. Social engineering, and then the initial connection is from the inside out.

Or Bob the executive opens an email attachment. But they won't let me download Eclipse so I can do my job.

 

[Ridge Walker]

Some of ours are.

The machine I work on daily since the end of 2020 connects with a copper wire into the back of a dedicated hardware device, which connects to a LAN that has no internet access via a secure tunnel ... across the internet. But none of the machines can get to google.com or any other routable address.

The way things get exploited in real life has essentially no semblance to what the movies show us. It's either Sally in HR clicks a link (from the internet, to the internet) or Ted in sales visits a site he shouldn't or Betty in accounting plugs in a USB stick she found in the parking lot. Something like that. Social engineering, and then the initial connection is from the inside out.

I also have worked on a isolated system with a dedicated hard wired console. You had to have the correct/current USB to boot it and the pass phrase for the USB, then for the system you needed the correct User ID then the correct PW. There were no prompts, just a black screen. What you typed didn't even appear. That system was a stand alone wired network, separate from the system that contacted the 'dirty world' via VPN only. The servers were in secure rooms and each system was a in cage. There were other security measures too.

About 5 months ago I and others were sent all over the country to secure facilities to manually change the IP addresses and subnets on location. All because for a undisclosed reason (above my pay grade) the old system was scrapped over night. We used our regular laptops to log in local through a browser window though.

 

[Idaho44]

Did the ransom payout facilitate the 'opening' of the pipeline? If so it must have been 'budgeted' into the operations costs and will be passed on to the consumers.

 

[Dinglenutz]

I also have worked on a isolated system with a dedicated hard wired console.

Yeah the PC-->BLACKBOX on this end is essentially a terminal, none of it connects to the inet on the PC side and the BB only allows a specific protocol through, to facilitate the remote terminal. Security matters for this so we adapt.

Nothing is 100% but it's not hard to get to being good enough.

 

[nwslopoke]

I'll probably spend the first month just sitting here eating beans and watching the shenanigans.

If you're eating beans for a month you'll be doing more than just watching.

 

[ATCclears]

An outside audit three years ago of the major East Coast pipeline company hit by a cyberattack found "atrocious" information management practices and "a patchwork of poorly connected and secured systems," its author told The Associated Press.

"We found glaring deficiencies and big problems," said Robert F. Smallwood, whose consulting firm delivered an 89-page report in January 2018 after a six-month audit. "I mean an eighth-grader could have hacked into that system."

Tech audit of Colonial Pipeline found 'glaring' problems

The author of a 3-year-old audit of the pipeline company hit by a cyberattack threatening East Coast fuel supplies has told The Associated Press that he found “atrocious” information management practices and “a patchwork of poorly connected and secured systems."

apnews.com

 

[Dinglenutz]

If you're eating beans for a month you'll be doing more than just watching.

I better mix it up a bit with corn and rice then.

 

[OldTengu]

One thing I hope that this is pointing out is that reliance on electronics creates as many weaknesses to exploit as it saves labor.
Case in point:
I have, in one of my buildings, some hvac equipment that should be functioning normally. It would be, if not for a small, malfunctioning sensor that is telling the equipments electronic brain that there is no water cycling through the system, when there is. If not for this sensor, everything would be fine.
tl;dr, something was working, so it was broken, so that it could be fixed with electronic equipment that doesn't work.

 

[CRBMoA]

Now we see what the TP madness was all about!

 

[E4mafia]

I'll bet it was those darn hackers on steroids from the internet hate machine who did this!