The US government urged citizens not to buy fuel for future use after a cyberattack on the largest gas pipeline in the country. As a reminder, the pumping was stopped on May 7 after a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline company.
“The next few days will be challenging,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in Washington on Tuesday. The situation will soon return to normal, there is no shortage of fuel. The government asks to refrain from panic. “We have gasoline, we just need to get it to the right places,” she added.
At the same time, a number of states have introduced a state of emergency due to the suspension of the largest pipeline in the United States. In particular, Florida Governor Ron Desantis announced a serious threat to the state.
"The unexpected closure of the Colonial Pipeline and the resulting fuel supply interruptions pose a serious threat to Florida and require similar urgent action to protect and facilitate fuel delivery to the state until the Colonial Pipeline is fully operational." by executive order of the Governor.
The document removes restrictions on the size of fuel trucks entering the state to provide fuel or supplies. It also makes price gouging illegal. Florida's state of emergency is now 30 days renewable.
Colonial Pipeline was forced to shut down its entire pipeline network on the US East Coast over the weekend. The company was attacked with a so-called ransomware virus.
After the suspension of the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies fuel to the east coast, the cost of gasoline in the United States approached the November 2014 highs.
American President Joe Biden said that Russia was "somewhat responsible" for the incident. According to media reports, the attack was carried out by a group of hackers DarkSide, which the media calls Eastern European or Russian. Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Russian president, said Russia had nothing to do with the hacker attack.
