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Ok, so the government steps in and says the pipeline operates without a billing system... now what? Pipes are useless without something to flow through them, a

• helsinkiandrew 5y ago
  The story was that hackers had closed the pipeline (or the owners had closed it because its systems become compromised). If the pipeline is seen as a piece of critical infrastructure [1] - where its closure can damage other parts of the US - then if Colonial didn't tell the FBI, CISA, the Department of Transport (or whoever is in charge of that part of infrastructure) that the reason they were closing it was because they couldn't bill their customers rather than it being a safety issue, I imagine they are in trouble. They were lucky in that it was only down for a short period, perhaps its OK - if it had been down long enough so ambulances stopped running and food and goods weren't delivered - then I'm sure the government would have told them to restart the pipeline and billing would have been sorted out some other way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_infrastructure_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_infrastructure_protec...