Colonial Pipeline paid the ransom

[missy]

Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5 Million in Ransom

Colonial Pipeline Co. paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country’s largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the transaction.The...

www.bloomberg.com

What are your thoughts regarding the fact that Colonial Pipeline paid the ransom to the hackers?

Doesn't this open the door to more crimes like this one?
Isn't this a risky precedent to set?

Or was there no choice in your opinion?

 

[elizat]

Generally, I think it's a terrible thing to do, but I realize sometimes there is no choice. Either you do it or the business is dead.

This article suggests it was an easy choice to pay, as the ransom was unusually low.

Cybercrime expert suggests Colonial Pipeline's ransom was so low because DarkSide messed up

Colonial Pipeline paid the Eastern European hackers who attacked its network 75 Bitcoin, worth almost $5 million at the time of the ransom payment, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday evening, backing up a report in Bloomberg News. The ransom payment to DarkSide, a...

theweek.com

However, that leads me to question why are we doing so much on wireless and network with infrastructure support? Much more cumbersome, but you could protect it a bit more if you didn't have everything connected. The US Government actually does that with some classified systems, where their network doesn't touch the internet, so you can still connect to one another but it's not even able to connect online. Other half has that at base.

 

[Lookinagain]

I have mixed feelings about them paying the ransom. Yes, it does set a bad precedent and encourages more bad actors to do things like this. But I also heard that this was a known vulnerability that the company could have prepared for but did not. So perhaps this will be a wake up call to all the private companies that own our infrastructure to be more diligent about keeping themselves secure.

 

[Karl_K]

Like the police departments and other government agencies both state and federal and a lot of companies big and small that paid it was the only choice because they refused to fund a complete disaster recovery infrastructure and the expertese to use it.
Sad thing is they wont learn the lesson.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

Its setting a president
I wonder of they had insurance for this

 

[Karl_K]

10-1 odds the DC Police are going to end up paying also.

 

[autumngems]

Now we have set a precedent