US fuel pipeline hackers 'didn't mean to create problems'

[Hokie]

3. Just spitballing but I think Colonial might have over reacted

I watched the White House briefing today and the attack was apparently confined to Colonial's business network. I worked in the refining industry and their networks that controlled the process units were separate from the business LAN. Data could flow up from the process control network to the business network but that was tightly controlled.

It sounds like DarkSide penetrated the Colonial business network with a cyberattack and Colonial shut down the pipeline in an abundance of caution. It's not like DarkSide was opening and closing valves or starting and stopping pumps.

This statement in the article is just plain stupid:

"All the devices used to run a modern pipeline are controlled by computers, rather than being controlled physically by people," he says.

People tell the computers what to do. The only difference is that modern control systems have moved from specialized computers using proprietary operating systems to PC's using Windows or Linux operating systems. Yes, computers do control equipment in a way that does what people tell it to do and protect equipment quickly when things like leaks happen. That has been going on since long before the PC.