According to US, Colonial Pipeline paid a $5 million ransom to hackers who attacked some of its networks.
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Currently there is no further information regarding when and how the payment was made.
The Colonial Pipeline, which operates the country's largest fuel pipeline, announced that it was breached on Friday and also shut down the four main pipelines serving the Eastern and Southeastern United States for safety reasons. Natural gas prices rose and some stations ran out of fuel. The Department of Transportation issued an emergency order allowing trucks transporting fuel in the affected states to work more hours than federal regulations usually permit.
The company announced on Wednesday that it has returned to its activities.
The FBI generally discourages but does not forbid ransomware victims from paying the hackers, as payment does not guarantee they will regain control of their systems, while it gives malicious actors incentive to do so for others as well.
See also: FBI and CISA issued an alert about DarkSide ransomware
At a press conference Monday about the Colonial Pipeline attack, Anne Neuberger, the White House deputy national security adviser for cybersecurity and emerging technologies, acknowledged that for some organizations, paying criminals may be in their best interest.
"We recognize, however, that companies are often in a difficult position if their data is encrypted and they don't have backups and can't recover the data," he said.
Speaking to MSNBC 's Andrea Mitchell on Thursday, Neuberger said the White House's advice is for victims not to pay the ransom.
«The federal government discourages the payment of ransoms because this practice encourages ransomware.»
The hackers who attacked Colonial Pipeline, known as DarkSide, are one of many ransomware groups that encrypt organizations' files and demand payment, either by locking their files and rendering them unusable or by threatening to leak them to the public.
See also: DarkSide ransomware: After Colonial Pipeline, it targets three more companies
DarkSide, like many other ransomware gangs, is believed to originate from Russia and their ransomware program is designed to stop if it infects computers that operate in the Russian language.
President Joe Biden said Monday that the administration believes DarkSide operates within Russia's borders and that while it does not appear to be directed by the Russian government, he is "going to have conversations" with the Russian president about these groups. "They have a responsibility to deal with them," he said.
