In the wake of the attack against Colonial Pipeline, ABC News’ Alex Presha looks at how hackers are hitting businesses and cities with digital ransoms and how they can protect themselves.The Department of Homeland Security is mandating that pipeline companies report cyber breaches to federal authorities within 12 hours, according to government officials., which resulted in supply chain delays and panic buying at gas stations along the East Coast and southern United States.
DHS officials rolled out what they call a"multi-pronged approach" to pipeline cyber security, which companies will now be responsible for putting into action.
"This is the first time that there's been mandatory reporting of cybersecurity incidents," one senior DHS official said."These are important steps forward and they should be understood as part of a broader strategic plan to ensure that the pipeline sector does what's needed to protect against the kind of cyber incident that we saw with respect to Colonial and enable the department to better identify, prevent and respond to such kinds of cyber incidents in the future.
Failure to comply with the directives could result in steep financial penalties for companies, senior DHS officials explained, adding the directive affects some of the"most critical pipelines in the country."Officials stressed it was a balancing act between being transparent, but also not providing a playbook for potential attackers to use against other companies.
The directive is about 20 years late but whatever.
horrible