Cybersecurity and Pipelines

Oil Pipeline Targeted

By Charles Parker, II

Companies are targeted for attack for various reasons. One predominant reason continues to be revenue. Without the possibility of a payout, there isn’t much reason for a group to spend the resources to attack the target.

One set of high value targets are pipelines. A few years ago, there was an issue with a pipeline in the US (i.e., Colonial Pipeline in 2021). Another pipeline has been compromised with the same form of attack, but in Canada. In this case, the Alpha V group successfully compromised the Trans Northern Pipeline’s systems in three provinces and applied the standard ransomware. They were able to exfiltrate approximately 190GB of data. The successful attack occurred in 2023.

Unlike the US attack, there were no unplanned interruption for the pipeline’s operations. Unfortunately, not much has been published as to the attack method used, depth of network penetration, and type of data. Portions of this information could be helpful as to how best to secure other’s networks. If any nuances would occur with this attack.

We must continue to be ever vigilant. This includes having internal systems checked more than once over time.

About the author-

Charles Parker II has been working in the info sec field for over a decade, in the banking, medical, automotive, and staffing industries. Charles has matriculated and attained the MBA, MSA, JD, LLM, and is in the final stage of the PhD in Information Assurance and Security (ABD) from Capella University. Mr. Parker’s areas of interest include cryptography, AV, and SCADA.