Washington, May 13 (Bureau) US President Joe Biden will carefully monitor the situation with fuel supply in the country in the wake of the cyberattacks on pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline as the company announces resumption of operations, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Thursday. The US East Coast has been experiencing fuel shortages after the company shut down its pipeline in wake of the attack and citizens rushed to hoard fuel out of fear of future shortages. Earlier in the day, Colonial Pipeline announced that it had initiated the restart of operations.
“President Biden and the White House will monitor the situation closely in the coming days, and continue to urge Americans to just purchase what they need, and not hoard fuel, as supply is restored,” Psaki said in a statement. The spokeswoman also highlighted the earlier announcement from Colonial Pipeline. “Tonight’s announcement means there’s an end in sight for the supply disruptions that have affected States across the Southeast. As Colonial Pipeline works to safely and fully resume operations over the next few days, we will stay in close contact with the company and will continue to offer any assistance needed – as we have done since the outset of this shutdown on Friday,” Psaki stated.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the company was attacked with ransomware allegedly developed by the Russian hacking collective DarkSide. Biden cited intelligence data as saying that there was no evidence Russia was behind the attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to the incident by saying that Russia had nothing to do with those hacker attacks.