| Ransomware attacks lead to continued fuel shortages in the southeastern US and health care shutdowns in Ireland. Tonight's Sentences was written by Gregory Svirnovskiy. | | | | | | | The Southeast sees gas shortages | | | | | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images | | - Fuel shortages in the southeastern US continued Friday as gas stations waited for petroleum deliveries from the now-operational Colonial Pipeline. Nearly nine in 10 gas stations in Washington, DC, were closed as of Friday morning. In North Carolina, just three in 10 were open. [Washington Post / Jacob Bogage]
- Colonial Pipeline, which shut down its services after falling victim to a ransomware cyberattack last Friday, spent much of this week getting everything back online. But that hasn't stopped gas prices from rising, or filled up gas stations along the East Coast. [USA Today / Brett Molina and Nathan Bomey]
- Contrary to public reports from early in the week, Colonial Pipeline paid $5 million in ransom money to DarkSide, the hackers who launched the ransomware attack, mere hours after it occurred — in exchange for an encryption key to unriddle the malware. But the tool worked too slowly, and they couldn't use it. [Bloomberg / William Turton, Michael Riley, and Jennifer Jacobs]
- Ransomware attacks are fairly prevalent in the US. And institutions are often forced to pay to reach an end. Baltimore and Atlanta, for example, have been hit hard by ransomware attacks; Lake City and River Beach, two cities in Florida, were forced to pay a combined total of more than $1 million to unfreeze their computer systems after a cyberattack in 2019. [CNET / Andrew Morse]
- At the White House on Thursday, President Joe Biden said the current gas shortages should be alleviated by the coming weekend. He urged consumers to refrain from panic buying, which often prolongs shortages. "Help is on the way, we're going to get through this, as we always do as Americans, and we're going to do it together," Biden said. [NPR / Brian Naylor]
| | | Ireland's health care system shut down after another ransomware attack | | - Ireland's health care system shut down after being targeted in a ransomware attack on Friday. The scope of the shutdown is unclear, though many hospitals in Dublin were forced to cancel most of their appointments heading into the weekend. [BBC]
- Paul Reid, Ireland's chief health services resource executive, told state public media that the attack was not espionage-related. "There has been no ransom demand at this stage," Reid said. "The key thing is to contain the issue. We are in the containment phase." [Guardian / Rory Carroll]
- Minister of State for Public Procurement and eGovernment Ossian Smyth called the incident "possibly the most significant cybercrime attack on the Irish State." "We are deploying everything to respond to this," he said. "And the way that's working is, for starters, it's a criminal investigation." [RTE]
- The effects are already evident. A maternity hospital in Dublin canceled all appointments except for patients who are 36 weeks pregnant or in need of urgent care. Every computer was shut off at a Cork oncology center, leading to concerns regarding time-sensitive medical procedures. [Forbes / Siladitya Ray]
- In the past year, a number of hospitals across the world have seen their internal systems incapacitated by cyberattacks. In February, two French hospitals were forced to postpone surgeries because of a cyberattack that stopped phones from working. German and US hospitals were both hit with ransomware cyberattacks last September. [AP]
| | | | | | | | | [CNN / Holmes Lybrand and Tara Subramaniam] - Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has been elected House GOP conference chair, replacing Liz Cheney, who was voted out of the position for her opposition to former President Donald Trump. Stefanik is to the left of Cheney on many issues — just not in her admiration of Trump. [CNBC / Kevin Breuninger]
- Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is not proceeding with a plan to expand Medicaid even though Missouri's electorate voted for it in 2020. The governor said it's because the state legislature did not approve the $130 million in funding needed to gain access to the billions of dollars in government help. [The Hill / Reid Wilson]
- Gaza's health system is being stretched thin — it's struggling to administer to a runaway Covid-19 surge and those wounded by Israeli airstrikes. [AP / Isabel Debre and Fares Akram]
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