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U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#61

Post by DangitBobby »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #57
DangitBobby wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do cryptocurrencies save you from a debt based economy or inflation? Don't you still need to pay for goods and services in the same debt-based economy? How does the flavor of money change whether someone needs to go into debt? What would prevent cryptocurrency values from inflating or deflating?

I think the answer to those questions has been answered more eloquently elsewhere. They are good questions, and have complex and nuanced answers. I wish you luck in your quest.

Well, you have been convinced of these things so it seemed like you might have stumbled across convincing resources. I'm sure there's a bunch of garbage to filter through on this topic on the open internet.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#62

Post by tw04 »

procarch2019 wrote: post #7
motohagiography wrote: post #6

Let's see if 15+ years of security people getting after critical infrastructure asset owners like this has made any difference. At least they detected something and shut it down to control the response. They also know the costs to repair and replace things. I don't suspect the pipeline uses a federation of heterogeneous systems to operate its SCADA actuators, so I would speculate it is likely a single firmware vulner…

I work in control systems OT space. A lot of distributed control systems and scada systems interface with the business layer in some fashion to provide access to time series and event data and to allow for alerts via email/mobile. Some people do this properly with good network segmentation, firewalls, A/V and patching, etc (there are several standards that dictate best practice). That said, even when doing it properl…

Why wouldn't you use a unidirectional connection for time series and event data? I understand why you might want to send things out to the rest of the world, I can't fathom why you wouldn't require physical access to have write access.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#63

Post by [deleted] »

mikewarot wrote: post #60

Connecting infrastructure to the internet is something that is done for many reasons. It would be a vast improvement of security if most of those connections went through a data diode[1] and only allowed monitoring. Knowing what is happening now with critical infrastructure, through the internet, can be done in a completely safe manner. It is a solved problem. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidirectional_networ…

[deleted]

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#64

Post by exikyut »

tw04 wrote: post #62
procarch2019 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in control systems OT space. A lot of distributed control systems and scada systems interface with the business layer in some fashion to provide access to time series and event data and to allow for alerts via email/mobile. Some people do this properly with good network segmentation, firewalls, A/V and patching, etc (there are several standards that dictate best practice). That said, even when doing it properl…

Why wouldn't you use a unidirectional connection for time series and event data? I understand why you might want to send things out to the rest of the world, I can't fathom why you wouldn't require physical access to have write access.

Genuine question (that I've been seriously wondering about for a long time): how do you implement validated attestation that a piece of log data has reached nonvolatile storage, triggered appropriate alarms, and that those alarm events have been acknowledged, while using a data diode type setup?

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#65

Post by wolverine876 »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #35
wolverine876 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a strawperson - it creates a fictional story and then criticize the characters. The U.S. government has been addressing computer security in infrastructure for a long time.

I’d prefer a new Cybersecurity branch of the military with full funding and resources rather than Space Force.

Should the military be handling domestic cybersecurity? That seems especially perilous to civil liberties, something out of dystopian sci-fi.

The military's role isn't to provide peace and justice for citizens, it's to kill people and destroy things. That's not an insult to the military, that's what soldiers will tell you; we need to be realistic about it. They should not be operating around civilians in peacetime (except in special circumstances).

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#67

Post by wolverine876 »

mcguire wrote: post #58
wolverine876 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a strawperson - it creates a fictional story and then criticize the characters. The U.S. government has been addressing computer security in infrastructure for a long time.

...which is why these sorts of attacks almost never occur and are always so resource intensive that no criminal would ever think of doing so for ransom?

Is your argument that if there's a problem, the government must not have tried to prevent it? We still have cancer; does the NIH exist? We still have crime, food poisoning, car accidents ...

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#69

Post by jtchang »

exikyut wrote: post #64
tw04 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't you use a unidirectional connection for time series and event data? I understand why you might want to send things out to the rest of the world, I can't fathom why you wouldn't require physical access to have write access.

Genuine question (that I've been seriously wondering about for a long time): how do you implement validated attestation that a piece of log data has reached nonvolatile storage, triggered appropriate alarms, and that those alarm events have been acknowledged, while using a data diode type setup?

Depends on your setup but a message bus architecture with polling would work.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#70

Post by nabilhat »

koheripbal wrote: post #41

Washington Post reported it was a ransomware attack. It may not have been a targeted attack.

The WaPo article itself is much more detailed. The bits about the age and fragility of Colonial's pipelines are far more significant than ransomware. Colonial's continued neglect is more disruptive than any single attack on the pipeline. The persistence of unreliable infrastructure is a more valuable disruptive asset to an organized opponent than a single targeted attack.

Tangent - Also interesting, the WaPo article [0] bears little resemblance to itself from only hours ago [1]. The article has grown by about 50%, while contents have come and gone. That's my favorite application for archive dot is - Seeing the timelapse of iterative releases, watching journalism bend and sway in the current of its own response. I'm not making any judgements, the internet is already sloshing with useless hot takes about journalism and media. It's just fascinating to see the modern editorial process at work, out in the open.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/08/cyber-att...

[1] https://archive.is/vlNs2

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