Introduction

Technology has been evolving with time and it would not be wrong to say that the evolution of technology is decreasing the efforts of human beings. It can also be witnessed that technology has made human life comfortable as new technologies can easily perform human work. The development has been phenomenal and it would not be wrong to say that the technology change has brought a big change in human lives. Computers are now doing humanitarian work and it can be noticed that now they don’t need a lot of humanitarian assistance as their work has improved with time. But one of the things which have increased with time is the cyber attacks. Cyber attacks can be termed as an unauthorized invasion of some outsiders to control technology illegally (Rid and Buchanan, 2015). It has been seen that maximum companies in the world are running through some sort of software or technology. The working mode is completely online and there is hardly anything offline. But now things have changed in such a manner that these illegal invaders are trying to gain control of the software or technology illegally. The main purpose of the cyber attackers is to ask for ransom price or hack the secret and important data of the organization. One of the biggest cyber attacks took place in the United States of America where attackers shut down the pipeline. It can b said that how can a pipeline be hacked but it was noticed that pipeline was running online and hackers got into the systems and hacked it and stopped the flow of oil. This was termed as one of the biggest cyber attacks on a platform that is not considered to be a place where attackers can hack the system. This report will talk about how Cyber attacks took place and what can be the possible ways to enter the systems. This report will demonstrate the understanding regarding how such cyber attacks can be prevented. It will also include the organization for security plan and how security monitoring system can help in avoiding such issues.

Problem

The hack on the Colonial pipeline is considered to be one of the biggest attacks on national infrastructure in history. This pipeline contains oil for many states and it was seen that the east coast was supplied fuel through this pipeline. The major worry which was witnessed was that if the pipeline is stopped for a long time then it can cause a surge in fuel prices and that can trouble a large group of people (Hobbs, 2021). It would not be wrong to say that this can bring issues in the country as price hikes in fuels can bring anger among people. Colonial pipeline is one of the pipelines in the world which runs with the help of technology and there is no role of humans in running the pipeline. So that means, when the attack is done then there are no chances for the human labour to continue the flow of fuels because the whole system of fuel flow was run on technology. Hackers somehow got into the system of the company and finally, they were able to hack the system. Hacking the system here means controlling the flow of fuel. They stopped the flow of fuel and the company confirmed the same on May 7th that their systems are hacked and this can be regarded as one of the toughest phases for the company as they were trying to recapture the controls of the pipeline (Bingle and Schaeffer, 2021). It can be said that technology can be dangerous as well when it gets into the wrong hands and that can trouble the lives of the people. Computer data hacks and bank hacks are now common as cyber attacks can get into the system. But hack of the pipeline is something that is first of its kind. Colonial Pipeline Company also tried to get back their system but they failed in regaining the control.

One of the things which were noticed was that this attack was well planned and carried out as they knew that this pipeline is much needed for the east coast. The hackers were also aware of the issues which will be created after this hack of the pipeline. Colonial Pipeline Company is considered to be one of the big names in the pipeline sector and getting in their system and hacking is a big thing. Hackers were looking out for ransom as they knew the company will b paying them as the halt in the fuel flow is troubling the company and they would pay anything to get their controls back (Parson and Killian, 2021). The worse part of a cyber attack is that it takes a lot of time to get back the system online as there is a big amount of damage done by the hackers. Over the years, it has been noticed that these hackers have made it tough for companies to regain control without fulfilling their demands. Fuel is considered to be a necessary thing for the people of the 21st century and hacking that means cutting a major part of the lives of the people. It was noticed that when there is the connectivity of technology then there is the risk of cyber attack. Pipeline technology was connected with Colonial Company`s internal network and that is why the vulnerability over the pipeline is there. It would not be wrong to say that vulnerability increases when the internal system is entirely connected. It has been noticed that when a hacker gets into the internal system then there is nothing that can be saved from the hacker. A breach in the internal system is turning out to major concern for humans in the 21st century.