You need to consider the motivation. Were the hackers just looking for a victim with deep pockets that would want to just hand over the money as soon as possibl

You need to consider the motivation. Were the hackers just looking for a victim with deep pockets that would want to just hand over the money as soon as possible or were they actually looking to bring down a major pipeline? Giving the victim the chance to recover once the ransom is paid seems like it was more about the money. The attack could just have easily deleted everything from the network and totally crippled Colonial.