Hackers breached Colonial Pipeline with one compromised password
The hack that took down the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S. and led to shortages across the East Coast was the result of a single compromised password, according to a cybersecurity consultant who responded to the attack. Hackers gained entry into the networks of Colonial Pipeline Co. on April 29 through a virtual private network account, which allowed employees to remotely access the company’s computer network, said Charles Carmakal, senior vice president at cybersecurity firm Mandiant, part of FireEye Inc., in an interview. The VPN account, which has since been deactivated, didn’t use multifactor authentication, a basic cybersecurity tool, allowing the hackers to breach Colonial’s network using just a compromised username and password. At that time, we had no idea who was attacking us or what their motives were.” Colonial Pipeline made Carmakal and Blount available for an interview in advance of Blount’s testimony next week before Congressional committees, in which he’s expected to provide further detail regarding the scope of the compromise and address the company’s decision to pay ransom to the attackers. The hackers also stole nearly 100 gigabytes of data from Colonial Pipeline and threatened to leak it if the ransom wasn’t paid, Bloomberg News reported last month.
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