Tag: forces

Categories
World News

Ransomware assault forces shutdown of largest gas pipeline within the U.S.

Ransomware attack forces shutdown of largest fuel pipeline in the U.S.

Signage will be displayed on a fence at the Colonial Pipeline Co. Pelham intersection and terminal in Pelham, Alabama, USA on Monday, September 19, 2016.

Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The operator of the country’s largest fuel pipeline, the Colonial Pipeline, fell victim to a cybersecurity attack targeting ransomware on Friday, forcing the company to temporarily suspend all pipeline operations, the company said in a statement on Saturday.

The company hired an outside cybersecurity firm to investigate the incident and reached out to law enforcement and other federal agencies. The cyber attack also affected some of its IT systems.

The Colonial Pipeline, which carries nearly half of the east coast’s fuel supplies, said it was “taking steps to understand and solve this problem.”

“Right now, our main focus is on the safe and efficient restoration of our service and our efforts to get back to normal operations,” said a company statement.

“This process is already underway and we are working diligently to address this issue and minimize disruption for our customers and those who depend on Colonial Pipeline,” the company said.

Colonial operates the largest refined product pipeline in the United States, according to its website, shipping 2.5 million barrels a day. Refined products include gas, diesel, heating oil, and jet fuel. The pipeline also supplies the US military.

Colonial’s system spans more than 5,500 miles between Texas and New Jersey, connecting refineries on the Gulf Coast to more than 50 million people in the southern and eastern United States, the company said.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate pipelines, said it was aware of the cyberattack and is monitoring the situation.

“We are aware that it appears to be a serious cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline system,” said chairman Richard Glick in a statement to CNBC. “FERC is in communication with other federal agencies and we are working closely with them to monitor developments.”

President Joe Biden was also briefed on the incident on Saturday morning, according to a White House spokesman.

“The federal government is actively working to evaluate the impact of this incident, avoid supply disruptions and help the company to restore pipeline operations as soon as possible,” the spokesman said.

The Biden government announced a 100-day plan in April to protect the country’s electrical systems supply chain from cyberattacks amid growing concerns over the vulnerability of U.S. power supplies to cyber threats.

A US Department of Energy spokesman said the department is coordinating with Colonial Pipeline, the energy sector, states and interacting partners to support the response effort.

“DOE also works closely with the coordination councils of the energy sector and the centers for the exchange and analysis of energy information and monitors possible effects on the energy supply,” the spokesman told CNBC.

Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, based in Texas, said an outage that would last a day or two would cause some minor inconvenience and greater impact after four to five days of shutdown.

There could also be possible sporadic outages if a certain terminal was dependent on a delivery today or tomorrow and this is now delayed, said Lipow.

“Unlike the February frost or the hurricane, refineries are still operating, converting crude oil into gasoline, jet and diesel. They just can’t get it to the terminals,” said Lipow. “Prolonged colonial pipeline downtime will force refineries to lower their operating rates as refinery stocks fill up.”

“While they may not be able to ship it to Colonial, the refineries will certainly continue to ship to the Midwestern markets,” said Lipow.

John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital in New York, said that if the outage persists, gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel shortages will quickly emerge in the United States.

“It appears that it was more of a ransomware attack than a state actor, but it shows the significant security flaw across the industry,” said Kilduff. “If there is no resumption of operations or at least no clarity about a resumption by tomorrow evening, gasoline prices will skyrocket on Sunday evening.”

Eric Goldstein, assistant director of cybersecurity at the agency for cybersecurity and infrastructure security, said the agency is working with partners from Colonial Pipeline and Interagenten.

“This underscores the threat ransomware poses to businesses regardless of size or industry,” Goldstein said.

Colonial Pipeline is privately owned by five companies: CDPQ Colonial Partners, IFM (US) Colonial Pipeline 2, KKR-Keats Pipeline Investors, Koch Capital Investments Company, and Shell Midstream Operating.

Categories
Health

Covid Pandemic Forces Households to Rethink Nursing Dwelling Care

Covid Pandemic Forces Families to Rethink Nursing Home Care

Even before the pandemic began 14 months ago, nursing homes had become the source of rampant, antibiotic-resistant infections. The facilities also faced systemic problems, such as the high turnover of nursing home staff and the game of the federal government’s rating system, which made it difficult for families to judge the quality of the homes.

For years, federal health officials and some insurers have been trying to encourage more home care, and the pandemic has created a sense of urgency.

“It really changed the paradigm of how older adults want to live,” said Dr. Sarita Mohanty, the executive director of the SCAN Foundation, a nonprofit group that addresses issues older adults face. The vast majority of these adults would prefer to stay home in old age, she said.

“What happened is a welcome kind of market correction for nursing homes,” said Tony Chicotel, an attorney for California Attorneys for San Francisco Nursing Home Reform. Some families, he said, “eventually agreed to a nursing home without thinking too much about it.” But after many families tried to provide home care during the pandemic, they found that leaving an elderly relative at home was a viable alternative.

Nursing homes grew out of the poor houses in England and America caring for the poor. In the United States, the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 provided money to states that care for the elderly. Thirty years later, the Medicaid program expanded funding and made nursing homes a central part of elderly care, said Terry Fulmer, president of the John A. Hartford Foundation, an advocacy group for older adults. “If you pay the nursing homes, go there,” said Dr. Fulmer.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that some programs to fund home care began, and nursing home residents across the country slowly began to decline, with occupancy falling to about 80 percent in recent years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Categories
Politics

Cyberattack Forces a Shutdown of a High U.S. Pipeline Operator

Cyberattack Forces a Shutdown of a Top U.S. Pipeline Operator

A cyber attack forced the shutdown of one of the largest pipelines in the United States in what appeared to be a major attempt to disrupt the vulnerable energy infrastructure. The pipeline carries refined gasoline and jet fuel up the east coast from Texas to New York.

The system’s operator, Colonial Pipeline, said in a statement late Friday that it had shut down its 5,500-mile pipeline, which carries 45 percent of the east coast’s fuel supplies, to contain the attack on its computer networks. There was disruption along the pipeline earlier on Friday, but it was unclear whether this was a direct result of the attack.

Colonial’s pipeline transports 2.5 million barrels daily, transporting refined gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel from the Gulf Coast to New York Harbor and major New York airports. Most of it goes to large storage tanks, and since the pandemic has dampened energy consumption, the attack was unlikely to cause immediate disruption.

In the statement, the company said it learned on Friday that it was “a victim of a cybersecurity attack,” but did not provide details. Such an attack could be malware that terminates its operation or ransomware that requires payment to unlock computer files or systems.

“In response, we have proactively taken certain systems offline to contain the threat that has temporarily halted all pipeline operations and impacted some of our IT operations,” the company said regarding information technology systems.

It said it contacted law enforcement and other federal agencies. The FBI is leading such investigations, but critical infrastructure is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The breach comes just months after two major attacks on American computer networks – the penetration of SolarWinds by the main Russian intelligence agency and another attack on a Microsoft email service attributed to Chinese hackers – that illustrate the vulnerability of the networks where the government operates and businesses rely.

While both of these attacks were initially aimed at stealing email and other data, the nature of the intrusions created “back doors” that experts say could ultimately allow attacks on the physical infrastructure. So far, it is believed that none of the efforts resulted in anything other than data theft.

The Biden government announced sanctions against Russia for SolarWinds last month and is expected to issue an executive order in the coming days that will take measures to secure critical infrastructure, including calling for more security for providers providing services to the federal government.

The United States has long warned that Russia implanted malicious code on power grids, and the United States responded a few years ago by injecting similar code into the Russian grid.

However, actual attacks on energy systems are rare. About a decade ago, Iran was blamed for an attack on the computer systems of Saudi Aramco, one of the world’s largest manufacturers, in which 30,000 computers were destroyed. This attack, which appeared to come in response to the US-Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear centrifuges, had no effect on operations.

Another attack on a Saudi petrochemical plant in 2017 nearly triggered a major industrial disaster. But it was quickly closed, and investigators later attributed it to Russian hackers. That year someone briefly took control of a water treatment plan in a small Florida town in what appeared to be an attempt to poison the supply, but the attempt was quickly stopped.

Categories
World News

North Korean Risk Forces Biden Into Balancing Act With China

North Korean Threat Forces Biden Into Balancing Act With China

SEOUL – As the Biden government finishes its first high-level diplomatic tour of Asia on Thursday, it counts on international alliances in the region to contain the growing threat posed by North Korea’s ballistic missiles and nuclear capabilities.

But the country perhaps best placed to influence Pyongyang has increasingly seen President Biden as an adversary: ​​China.

After meetings in South Korea and Japan this week, the government is facing a diplomatic stalemate that irritated former President Barack Obama and led former President Donald J. Trump to declare his love for Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea , in a manic but ultimately foiled urge for a breakthrough.

At stake is the risk posed by North Korea’s weapon systems and its repressive domestic policy with surveillance, torture and prison camps. Recent attempts by the Biden administration to open a communication line have been rejected by North Korea, so American officials have urged their partners in the region to join a pressure campaign against Pyongyang.

“With respect to North Korea, the most important contact or engagement is our partners and allies – that is a big part of the reason we are here,” Foreign Secretary Antony J. Blinken told reporters Thursday after talks in Seoul with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and the South Korean Foreign and Defense Ministers.

He said the Biden administration was in close consultation with the governments of South Korea, Japan and other allied nations “who are concerned about the actions North Korea is taking”.

But China is North Korea’s foremost financial and political benefactor, and Blinken acknowledged that Beijing “plays a crucial role” in all diplomatic efforts with Pyongyang. He suggested China was also concerned about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

“China has a real interest in helping,” said Blinken. “So we are looking to Beijing to play a role in developing what I believe is in everyone’s interest.”

Whether the United States can recruit Beijing to attend will become clearer after talks later Thursday and Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, when China’s two top diplomats meet with Mr Blinken and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. American officials have billed the talks as a blunt exchange of political views.

How North Korea can be contained is discussed in Anchorage, among other places. It is one of the few areas where American officials believe they can work with China as the Biden government continues to face Beijing’s military expansionism, crackdown on democracy, and economic coercion in the Indo-Pacific region.

Mr Blinken previously referred to China as America’s “greatest geopolitical test of the 21st century,” and the Biden administration has issued stern warnings and financial sanctions against Beijing, including on Wednesday, in response to some of its actions.

“Given its political and economic ties with North Korea and its overall strength in the region, it makes sense to enlist China’s support,” said Frank Aum, North Korea expert at the US Peace Institute in Washington.

However, Mr. Aum also noted that China has no control over a number of demands North Korea has made in return for disarmament, including lifting US sanctions and ending joint US-South Korean military exercises.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is keen to see the United States resume diplomatic talks with North Korea and other regional powers. He has repeatedly argued that a nuclear weapons-free Korean peninsula is possible, and has insisted that Mr Kim is willing to give up his arms and focus on economic growth should Washington provide the right incentives.

After meeting with the US envoy, South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong said he hoped for a “resumption of dialogue” between the United States and North Korea and that the Seoul government would continue to support Washington’s efforts to establish a diplomatic mission. Contact with Pyongyang.

He also suggested that Mr. Trump’s direct diplomatic approach provided “basic principles” for achieving denuclearization and peace in the Korean Peninsula.

“Our experience over the past three years has shown that it is possible to solve the nuclear problem if North Korea is persistent on the basis of close cooperation between South Korea and the United States,” said Chung.

It’s been more than a year since North Korea spoke directly to American officials, Blinken said in Tokyo. And this week’s Seoul meeting was the first between South Korean foreign and defense ministers and their American counterparts in five years.

Mr. Moon’s political portfolio rose when he helped bring Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim together for two summit meetings. But after the second, in 2019, ended abruptly without reaching an agreement on easing American sanctions or the pace of North Korean disarmament, Mr Moon sought to regain its relevance in the negotiations. In June last year, North Korea blew up the joint inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border. This was the first in a series of measures that threatened to reverse a fragile détente.

Officials in North Korea will reject Washington’s attempts to enter into dialogue “unless the US resets its hostile policies,” said Choe Son-hui, the country’s first deputy foreign minister, on Thursday. “That is why we will continue to ignore such an attempt by the USA in the future.”

Ms. Choe cited military exercises the United States had conducted with South Korea and spoke in Washington of imposing more sanctions on the North than examples of this hostility. In a diatribe released hours after the senior US envoy landed in Tokyo earlier this week, North Korea warned the Biden government not to “cause a stink”.

North Korea has not conducted any weapons tests since short-range missiles were launched in March last year. However, during a military parade in October, a new untested ICBM was unveiled that looked larger and more powerful than the ICBM it tested in late 2017, before Mr Kim began diplomacy with Mr Trump.

At a party conference in January, Mr Kim promised to further develop his country’s nuclear capabilities and stated that it would build new solid fuel ICBMs and make its nuclear warheads lighter and more precise.

Analysts said Pyongyang was closely following Mr. Blinken and Mr. Austin’s trips to Tokyo and Seoul this week for clues about the Biden government’s approach. It is expected that, after observing Washington, North Korea will decide whether to resume weapons testing and create a new cycle of tension for leverage.

Mr. Moon is anxious to save his once proud diplomacy over North Korea. His meeting with Mr Blinken and Mr Austin on Thursday should “send a strong message and call for the United States to be more flexible to include North Korea in the dialogue,” said Lee Byong-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University institute for Far East studies in Seoul.

“North Korea’s sentiment towards Moon Jae-in is disappointing,” said Lee. “Moon has been in a difficult position since talks between North Korea and the United States collapsed.”

Mr Blinken said the American stance on North Korea would include a mixture of regional pressure options and the potential for future diplomacy when the current policy review of the Biden administration is completed as early as next month.

Mr Aum, the North Korea expert at the U.S. Peace Institute, said the policy could include forcing China to do more to contain North Korea, possibly by deploying additional weapon systems in the region or conducting major military exercises with South Korea – both would irritate Beijing.

China has largely urged North Korea and the United States to solve the impasse on their own, despite calling for sanctions easing and a break in American military exercises with Seoul in exchange for Pyongyang freezing its nuclear and missile tests.

“All parties should work together to maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said this week. “China will continue to play a constructive role in this process.”

Steven Lee Myers and John Ismay reported from Seoul.

Categories
Health

Pandemic Forces F.D.A. to Sharply Curtail Drug Firm Inspections

Pandemic Forces F.D.A. to Sharply Curtail Drug Company Inspections

Remote exam advocates say they can do the same thing virtually. Peter Miller, president of New Jersey-based Dynamic Compliance Solutions, which helps life science companies comply with FDA regulations, says his remote audit kit can do an excellent inspection. The kit includes a tiny 360-degree camera that an on-site host carries on a tripod while the investigator watches on a computer screen.

“The inspector can say, ‘I see a stack of boxes over there. Can we get a little closer I would like to see if they have the right stickers, ”he said. “I believe the examiner should be in control of what he sees. We’re doing a live stream, an unrecorded broadcast. “

Industry lawyers believe the FDA is too picky about the current backlog to refuse remote inspections. Mark I. Schwartz, a former FDA assistant director who oversaw inspections by the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, believes wider use of remote inspections is overdue. Mr Schwartz believes remote inspections, if done properly, will produce results similar to face-to-face visits – which he said more than a dozen of his customers are dying to do.

“To suggest that being there makes a big difference is a fallacy,” said Schwartz, now a director at Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, a law firm with a large practice in the pharmaceutical industry. At best, according to Schwartz, the on-site investigators only see around 15 percent of a company, even if they are there in person.

The subject caught the attention of Congress. Dr. Denigan-Macauley, due to testify Tuesday before the budget subcommittee that oversees FDA Representative Sanford Bishop, a Georgia Democrat who chairs the panel, said, “The pressure to ensure the FDA continues to assess safety and security The effectiveness of the drug supply is growing day by day. ”

While public health experts have been hit by the sharp decline in inspections, most believe virtual inspections are a poor substitute for in-person reviews.

“Remote inspections are just not going to make it,” said Dr. Carome. “Often times the FDA identifies serious problems and when you are away they go undetected.”

Categories
Politics

How Professional-Trump Forces Pushed a Lie About Antifa on the Capitol Riot

How Pro-Trump Forces Pushed a Lie About Antifa at the Capitol Riot

Ms. Ingraham, who told Fox News viewers about the “anti-fascist” uprising, later shared on Twitter that the Washington Times article she quoted had been exposed. It did not issue an on-air correction. Mr Herman, the Limbaugh innkeeper who speculated on Antifa, wrote in an email Saturday, “It was clear that a large group of Trump supporters entered the Capitol and attacked people.” But he continued to falsely claim that antifa activists planned to pose as Trump supporters.

Of the 290 people charged with the attack, at least 27 are links to far-right groups such as the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys. Others have ties to neo-confederate and white supremacist units or are clear supporters of the QAnon conspiracy movement. The vast majority expressed an ardent belief that Mr Trump was the rightful election winner.

On January 8, the FBI announced that there was no evidence that supporters of Antifa known to aggressively counter-protest demonstrations against white supremacists participated in the Capitol mob. And on January 13, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the minority in the Republican House, spoke at the impeachment trial of Mr. Trump, saying, “Some say the riot was caused by Antifa. There is absolutely no evidence of this, and conservatives should be the first to say so. “

But the next day, the arrest of a protester named John Sullivan sparked another surge in right-wing media over Antifa and the uprising.

Mr Sullivan called himself a Utah “activist” and CNN mistakenly featured him as a “leftist activist” when he appeared on the network on Jan. 6. (He had sold footage to CNN and other news outlets showing the shooting of Ashli ​​Babbitt, a rioter who died in the Capitol.) Conspiracy agency Gateway Pundit and Mr. Trump’s attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani arrested Mr. Sullivan, to re-accuse Antifa of posts that garnered tens of thousands of likes and shares on Facebook and Twitter.

In reality, Mr. Sullivan was an attention seeker whose policies were fungible and seemingly altered based on the protest he was attending at the time, according to activists from Seattle, Salt Lake City and Portland, Oregon who had warned him for months about the Uprising in the Capitol.

Categories
Health

California’s Covid surge forces trial delay of Theranos Elizabeth Holmes

California's Covid surge forces trial delay of Theranos Elizabeth Holmes

Elizabeth Holmes, founder and former executive director of Theranos, arrives for a hearing in the U.S. District Court in the Federal Building of Robert F. Peckham in San Jose, California on Monday, November 4, 2019.

Yichuan Cao | NurPhoto | Getty Images

A surge in coronavirus cases in California has resulted in a four-month delay in criminal proceedings against Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO and founder of the competitive health tech company Theranos.

In an order late Friday evening, US District Judge Edward Davila set a new hearing for the case for July 13, 2021.

“The court was vigilant to keep abreast of the nation and state impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as daily life on San Francisco Bay,” the tripartite ruling reads. “Unfortunately, the court finds that the impact on our lives is grave. California is in the midst of an unprecedented increase in cases and hospitalizations.”

The judge found that California had more than 1.76 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 22,160 deaths as of Friday. He also indicated that the Santa Clara County hospitals where the trial would take place are nearing maximum capacity.

Davila said these terms would “affect the jury and public confidence in a personal process that is expected to take several months”.

The move comes two weeks after the judge established a reconfigured courtroom, face mask requirements for study participants, and air filtration systems to move Holmes’ trial forward.

Prosecutors say they have ample evidence that Holmes ran a multi-million dollar program to scam investors, doctors and patients about the accuracy of Theranos’ blood testing technology.

Holmes, once hailed as the next Steve Jobs, pleaded guilty to a dozen criminal offenses – expecting 20 years in prison if convicted.

“The court recognizes that continuation of the trial will cause great inconvenience to victims who wish to spend their day in court, as well as to the defendant who wants a speedy defense against the charges,” he said.

The verdict came in the wake of Holmes’ struggle to prevent prosecutors from using their personal communications with their former lawyer, David Boies, while in Theranos.