As we detailed earlier,<\/a>\u00a0the hackers who caused Colonial Pipeline to shut down the biggest U.S. gasoline pipeline on Friday\u00a0began their blitz against the company a day earlier, stealing a large amount of data before locking computers with ransomware\u00a0<\/strong>and demanding payment, according to people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n Bloomberg\u00a0<\/a>reports that\u00a0the intruders are part of a cybercrime gang called DarkSide,<\/strong>\u00a0took nearly 100 gigabytes of data out of the Alpharetta, Georgia-based company\u2019s network in just two hours on Thursday, two people involved in Colonial\u2019s investigation said.<\/p>\n Aside from the inevitable sabre-rattling ‘blame Russia’ policy prescriptions that are likely imminent, the biggest concern for the ‘average joe’ American is –\u00a0what will this do to gas prices?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cRestarting the pipeline is easy if no actual damage was done to it,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>said McNally, who now runs Rapidan Energy Group, a consulting firm in Washington.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question is whether the attack was limited and contained and it didn\u2019t cause any physical damage to it.\u201d<\/p>\n But others are less sanguine.<\/p>\n The attack was on “the brains of the system,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>according to Niyo Pearson, an oil and gas adviser for Cynalytica, a cybersecurity firm. \u201cIt controls the settings on the pipeline, what the pressure is, remote operation of valves,\u201d<\/p>\n And that means, as Bloomberg reports, trying to restart the flow of gasoline without that capability would require Colonial to send people to various facilities along the length of the pipeline, and the expertise needed to operate under those conditions is limited, he said.<\/p>\n A key concern at present is meeting product demand in the U.S. Southeast,\u00a0<\/strong>which is especially dependent on the Colonial system, people familiar with the situation said. The Northeast can secure gasoline shipments from Europe, they said, but it will come at an increasing cost the longer the pipeline stays shut.<\/p>\n \u201cThe longer it lasts, the more bullish it will be for refined products on the East Coast,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>said Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING Groep NV.<\/p>\n \u201cThis\u00a0will likely also drag European product prices higher,<\/strong>\u00a0as we see more waterborne cargoes needing to go into the U.S. East Coast to meet the shortfall.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/colonial-pipeline_0.png?itok=GbRdmzgZ\")
<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2021-05-09_8-55-59.jpg?itok=44zvklGP\")
<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2021-05-09_9-05-00.jpg?itok=Wje9HDe1\")
<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n