Biden signs executive order to bolster US cybersecurity after critical pipeline hacking

US President Joe Biden has signed an executive order to improve cybersecurity in the wake of a major pipeline cyberattck, which has caused severe gas shortage and panic buying on the US East Coast.

The White House said in a statement on Wednesday, "Today, President Biden signed an Executive Order to improve the nation’s cybersecurity and protect federal government networks. Recent cybersecurity incidents such as SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange, and the Colonial Pipeline incident are a sobering reminder that US public and private sector entities increasingly face sophisticated malicious cyber activity from both nation-state actors and cyber criminals."

The US Southeast and Mid-Atlantic was hit after a ransomware hack shut the Colonial Pipeline, the nation's biggest fuel pipeline, on Friday. The strategic pipeline, which supplies 45 percent of the East Coast’s gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, is expected to remain down for several more days. 

Drivers in the US Southeast swarmed pump to fill up tanks from the dwindling number of retail gas stations, disregarding government pleas not to fuel during the pipeline outage as the shutdown entered its sixth day.

The average national gasoline price rose to above $3.00 a gallon on Wednesday, the highest since October 2014, the American Automobile Association said.

The worsening gas shortage saw Americans fill plastic bags with gasoline as consumers raced to secure supplies.

Biden’s executive order requires IT service providers that work for private sector companies to share information if a significant cyberattack occurs. According to the order, service providers in the private sector must report breaches to the federal government within three days.

Cyberattack that shut major pipeline exposes vulnerabilities in America’s energy infrastructure

A cyberattack that shut the largest US gasoline pipeline has highlighted vulnerabilities in America’s critical energy infrastructure.

The move is part of a broad effort to strengthen the United States’ defenses by encouraging private companies to practice better cybersecurity or risk being locked out of federal contracts, US media says.

The order also provides for the implementation of stronger cybersecurity standards in the federal government by securing cloud services, a zero-trust architecture, and mandating the deployment of multifactor authentication and encryption.

It added that in the coming months, an inter-agency process must identify ways to better secure federal data and strengthen cybersecurity infrastructure.

All software, purchased by the federal government, is now required to meet, within six months, a series of new cybersecurity standards. 

Over the past year, some 2,400 ransomware attacks have hit American corporate, local and federal offices in extortion plots that lock up victims’ data.

Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said recent cyberattacks “have highlighted what has become increasingly obvious in recent years: that the United States is simply not prepared to fend off state-sponsored or even criminal hackers intent on compromising our systems for profit or espionage.”

Panic buying is emptying gas pumps across US Southeast

American motorists are racing to fill up as Colonial Pipeline cyber attack has prompted panic buying and left many gas stations empty, or close to it.

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