Quote:Colonial Pipeline Co. may have turned off the tap following Friday’s ransomware attack, but the news about the devastating assault keeps gushing.
 
In the wake of the DarkSide cyberattack, President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at bolstering the federal government’s cyber defenses as the administration juggles a number of digital attacks including SolarWinds and last week’s ransomware incident against a major fuel pipeline causing lasting gas shortages.
 
While not specifically targeting critical infrastructure, the Biden directive instructs the Commerce Department to create new cybersecurity standards for tech companies that sell software services to the federal government.
 
“The Colonial Pipeline incident is a reminder that federal action alone is not enough,” the White House said in a statement.
 
As of 5 p.m. on Wednesday evening, Colonial was sputtering back to life after closing the fuel faucet to the eastern and southern U.S.; the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) had issued a joint advisory about the threat actor – DarkSide – that mugged the company; and five affiliated crooks that rent DarkSide ransomware had been fingered by Mandiant FireEye.
 
051321 09:22 UPDATE: Colonial announced that as of 9 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, delivery was back up in a majority of the markets it services. It projected that all of its markets would be getting fuel by mid-day. The company included a map, shown below, that indicates the segments of its pipeline that are now delivering liquid fuel, in green, with blue lines showing which lines will be back online later today.