Gas Prices Soar after Russian Hackers Shutdown Largest Oil Pipeline in the US

    A professional gang of Russian hackers, known as “DarkSide” have committed a cyberattack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline, the largest oil pipeline in the US: resulting in a spike of gas prices that exceed $3 per gallon, the FBI confirmed.

    DarkSide’s cyberattack has caused gas prices to reach to heights not seen since November 2014, according to the Automobile Association of America (AAA).

    Today will be the sixth day that DarkSide, a Russia-based criminal group, closed the 5,500 pipeline, which carries more than 100 million gallons of fuel from Texas to New Jersey each day.

    Across Alabama, Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas, Maryland and Virginia, nearly 1,800 stations are out of gasoline, which has sparked scenes of southerners “panic buying” gas at stations throughout the southeast.

   Last night, the White House urged Americans not to hoard fuel, as social media showed many Southerners filling up barrels, tanks, and jugs with gas to store.

   The governors of Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia have all declared states of emergency to authorize temporary rules that could slow the rising price of gasoline. 

    DarkSide’s usual practice is to extort cash from corporations, while also giving a cut of what they steal to charity, the Associated Press reported Sunday, citing sources familiar with the federal investigation.

    Although DarkSide claims on its website, “Our goal is to make money, and not to create problems for society,” however, Anne "Chani" Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, who grew up in Boro Park, called the hackers, “criminal actors.”

    “Our intelligence community is looking for any ties to any nation-state actors,” said Mrs. Neuberger, who attended Bais Yaakov and spoke Yiddish at home.

    On its website, DarkSide ominously threatens, “From today we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the future,” the New York Post reported.