A cyberattack has forced an operational shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, the largest refined products pipeline in the United States.
The Colonial Pipeline Company said late Friday that it was the victim of a cyberattack, sparking the company to proactively take certain systems offline and temporarily halt all pipeline operations. The company said the attack had impacted some of its IT systems, but did not say if any of its operational technology (OT) systems were directly impacted.
It’s unclear if the incident involved ransomware, or was another form or malware or breach.
The company has hired a third-party cybersecurity firm which has already launched an investigation into the nature and scope of this incident.
“Colonial Pipeline is taking steps to understand and resolve this issue,” the pipeline operator said in a statement. “At this time, our primary focus is the safe and efficient restoration of our service and our efforts to return to normal operation. This process is already underway, and we are working diligently to address this matter and to minimize disruption to our customers and those who rely on Colonial Pipeline.”
The Colonial Pipeline is the largest refined products pipeline in the United States, transporting more than 100 million gallons of fuel daily through a pipeline system that is more than 5,500 miles between Houston, Texas and Linden, New Jersey.
Public infrastructure is indeed a major cyber target and one that needs to be protected from espionage and cyber attacks.
One of the primary reasons we at BLAKFX invented the Helix22 SDK is to protect government infrastructure. Whether the electrical grid, a dam, an oil pipeline or an airport, more and more infrastructure is becoming an attack target. Terrorism and espionage has evolved dramatically from the use of physical devices to destroy critical infrastructure. In today’s new global cold war, cyber terrorism is a much greater threat. Your enemies do not need to physically damage a power plant to shut down the grid, rather just hack into it. Hacking also is proving to be more effective and is a more intrusive means of affecting national security.
The risks are exponentially greater for infrastructure projects than say a typical attack against a business. When attacking a business, quite often the motivation is simply financial gain and/or competitive advantage. With governmental or private infrastructure programs, the risk is to the citizens that might be effected by the attack. For example, in 2015, the power grid in Ukraine was repeatedly shut down by cyber attacks. In March of 2020, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced that the US energy sector was attacked as a means of shutting down natural gas pipelines. The attack disrupted operations across various critical systems operators, which meant that an entire pipeline involved was shut down for two days.
The bottom-line. is that for national security, data needs to be protected not just to avoid data leakage and the costs involved, but to ensure control and command.
As the scale of the cyber attacks on numerous US government departments become more clear, it is clear that the US federal government is at an extreme risk of a serious intrusion and is also an open door for espionage.
National security is literally at stake across a wide range of critical areas: 1) intelligence 2) infrastructure 3)military 4) bureaucratic operations.
To us at BLAKFX, our primary reason we came into existence was to ensure national security. We realized that the era of perimeter data security tools has long been over and that the threat of espionage is too critical.
Our Motto: In Math We Trust
The bottom-line is that the federal government is relying an outdated approach that still dominates data security products i.e. that we must build a perimeter to defend against data theft. This is old thinking and as demonstrated, hackers can breach just about any perimeter and now can use those same products to compromise their clients. American National Security cannot depend on outdated data security.
What is needed is a better approach to data security. Perimeter products that try to keep hackers out will all eventually be breached. Fanaticism on identification through bio-metrics, password managers or 2FA are only as secure as the person entrusted to follow the protocol. As we all have learned, the human error component can always be breached. In the near future, when quantum computing becomes more mainstream, products that rely on TLS-based encryption will be instantly obsolete.
The only solution is for data security products that actually protect the data itself.
The Helix22 data security SDK protects all data at rest, in use and in transit. Review Helix22 API, examples and documentation on our GIT
BLAKFX delivers all this security assurance very confidently due to our genius engineering team spearheaded by Robert Statica and Alex Maslov who have invented a new model for data security that required an innovative look at the problem.
The new era of data security is one that requires new solutions. The era of perimeter defenses is over as it is proving impossible to keep hackers from breaching the perimeter and accessing data. Further E2E encryption based on old models of RSA cryptography will be obsolete when quantum computing becomes mainstream.
Helix22 delivers perfect security assurance due to our genius engineering team that has invented a new model for data security that required an innovative look at the problem. The approach we took was to protect the data itself. Almost all other data security products try to build a perimeter or being fanatic on user credentials. However, once the product is breached or a password is stolen, even if it is 2FA or encrypted, your firms data is in the clear.
You see, the Helix22 cryptography is embedded with the data itself through our inventive and patented process of DNA BindingTM. Therefore, even if credentials are stolen the data cannot be exfiltrated. This means that all data is 100% protected regardless of the type of attack.
Another substantial advantage of Helix22, is that it protects all data whether at rest, in use or in transit. All communication apps for example, only encrypt data while in transit. Therefore, that encryption become useless for internal IT security or Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning experimentation. All data generated during these massive computing exercises is equally protected in real time. Plus, the latency period for the Helix22 is exponentially less than any other security product, so it actually contributes to faster processing times.
In this protocol, we are truly a “zero-knowledge” server so your private communications and transmissions remain completely top secret. Even in the event that BLAKFX were subpoenaed, we can honor the request by just handing over the encrypted content…as that is literally all we have. Helix22 also only use keys just one-time and then destroys them. This way the data security is future forward prefect. Therefore, in our unique user-to-user encryption (U2U) world, there is no opportunity ever for any data leak.
BLAKFX Military advisor, Major General (Ret) Stephen T Sargeant
CEO of Marvin Test Solutions
The Helix22 data security SDK accomplishes the following:
- Protects all your firms data at rest, in use and in transit
- Renders ransomware threats obsolete
- Eliminates human error
- Eliminates all malicious or interior attacks
- Verifies original content i.e. minimizes the threat of impersonation attacks and deep fakes
- Reduces latency
- Installs with 5 lines of code
- Runs on any platform, network, device and in any programming language
- Provides perfect future/forward secrecy
- Delivers “zero-knowledge” encryption
- Compatible with all cloud, 3rd party and vendor services
- Is quantum ready – so there’s no need to upgrade when the time comes
- Requires no employee training
- Exceeds all gov’t and banking standards
- Meets compliance regulations
D2D encryption
We can make this claim as the tech engineers at BLAKFX invented and patented a genuine device2device (D2D) encryption. We manage data security transmission through the truly brilliant and also patented universal Helix22 key service. The Helix22 encryption originates on your network or device, not just when the app is opened. This means, that when data arrives to our key server, it is already encrypted so all it needs to do is issue another key. Signal and Telegram cannot claim this level of security. This key will then only work with the intended device, which generates a matching key required to open the data. In this protocol, we are truly a “zero-knowledge” server so your communications and transmissions remain completely top secret. Even in the event that BLAKFX were subpoenaed, we can honor the request by just handing over the encrypted content…as that is literally all we have. Helix22 also only use keys just one-time and then destroys them. This way the data security is future forward prefect. Therefore, in our unique device-to-device world, there is no opportunity at all for any data leak.
This same protocol just described, can be the same with all your 3rd party vendors and suppliers. It does not matter in the least what platform they are running or what device they are using or even the type of data, it is all 100% protected. We do however, strongly advise that all firms involved be utilizing Helix22 due to the nature of the data content. Helix22 can ensure that whatever data they are generating is protected as well.
Let’s take it a step further. Even if your organization were a victim of an internal attack or a victim of malicious open source downloads, there is no reason for concern. Any data that has been forwarded, downloaded, copied or saved cannot be exfiltrated. Period. We have the technology industries foremost data packets which are protected with multi-layered, military grade encryption algorithms that have already proven the ability to withstand penetration testing from MI5 and quantum computing attacks.
One final practical genius of DNA BindingTM is in that it is immediately compatible with whichever system or software you are utilizing. Therefore, any organization can forward information to another and then discuss it and there is immediate privacy.
The BLAKFX Suite of Data Security Products
In addition to the fastest and most secure data protection product available in Helix22, we provide a full range of security products for an holistic approach.
We are on a mission to stop ransomware threats
Ransomware Auditing as a Service (RaaS): ransomware attacks have skyrocketed in the past year and currently represents the biggest threat to the data of government agencies, military, intelligence agencies as well as private enterprises. BLAKFX developed the first in the world Ransomware Auditing as a Service (RaaS) platform which allows our cyber security engineers to scan your network and simulate real-world ransomware attacks to determine the test the prevention, detection and mitigation strategies of your organization and establish how resilient your network is to real ransomware attacks. After the scan we provide a comprehensive report and our recommendations for remediation.
If you are the victim of an actual ransomware attack, we are able to recover the data that has been hi-jacked during the attack and due to Helix22’s DNA BindingTM cryptography, restore it to its original state.
Auditing/Penetration Testing: we provide cyber auditing & penetration testing services in order to identify the gaps in your network, cloud, communications, network appliances, wireless networks, laptops, desktops & mobile devices, website, backup and 3rd party applications and services. Once we scan your systems, we provide a comprehensive report and our recommendations for remediation.
MSS & Insider Threat Prevention: BLAKFX has a national security level Secure Operations Center that can monitor your network (via our Managed Security Service) for threats & vulnerabilities as well as your employees via threat behavioral analysis techniques in order to stop threats (including insider threats) before they become a problem for your network, data and organization.
TSCM: many organizations and government agencies are aware of the threats posed by hacking surveillance and data theft but are not aware that Technical Surveillance Counter Measures and Electronic Security are an essential component of overall risk mitigation. BLAKFX’s access to the most sophisticated equipment, military and intelligence community level RF frequencies monitoring expertise is unique in the world.
Physical Security: we offer overall physical security services and designs for your buildings, data centers, cloud providers, airplanes, vehicles and personnel security. We provide full physical security planning, insider threat detection and prevention, physical security audits, certification, and security awareness training.
Global Governments: (restrictions apply) Click here to request information & quotes
*Katim Ultra Secure Smartphone: part of the BLAKFX’s suite of secure products, we are pleased to offer governments, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, military forces globally and enterprises, a fully user2user encrypted phone, with secure messenger, secure email, secure news, secure audio/video calling & secure conference calling.
OSINT: the Collection Platform provides real time comprehensive view of collected intelligence from various sources. The system allows for more effective operation management by allowing the operators to control all available intelligence gathering tools from a single, unified dashboard. By allowing centralized control, alongside presentation of key intelligence and insights the overall operational effectiveness is significantly increased.
The Analytics Platform system fuses all field intelligence meta-data and cyber intelligence content, as well as other data sources, to highlight and identify suspicious activity, important events and analyze suspects’ relationships and communications. The system can provide in-depth operational understanding in near-real-time to the field operations teams.
Pre-Crime, Data Fusion and Big-Data Analysis: a full range of capacity for big data analytics. Analyze billions of events, merge data from heterogeneous sources, reveal weak signals and understand the digital behavior of a target are some of the numerous features of the Analytics Center. It’s composed of modules like Analytics, Profile, Relational and Predictive.
LLDDS: Low Level Defender Drone System consists of three essential elements, the first of which is our Ground Based Sensor Node (GBSN). The GBSN employs a very low power, high sensitivity FMCW radar system, functionally integrated with a complementary video/IR detection and confirmation system. The GBSN is controlled by AI and by either a single on-site operator or via remote operator control over our fully secure Command, Control and Communications (C3) SatComm-based network. The second element in the System is a medium endurance, low-level, missile-armed defender drone. This critical airborne asset will provide: persistent or on-demand zone protection including airborne patrol, target identification, target confirmation, and attack. This unmanned, very capable platform is the attack and deterrent end of the LLDD defense chain. It is continuously and closely monitored and controlled by AI and a Controller/Operator – in real-time – via the LLDD C3 SatComm Network. Our highly automated and minimally manned concept employs proven off-the-shelf, ground-based and airborne sensors and platforms combined with proprietary BLAKFX technology.
Note: Items marked with * are available for enterprises as well
BLAKFX is Based on Success
Our founders, Robert Statica PhD and Kara Coppa, also founded Wickr, which is used by the US military and has never been hacked since its inception in 2012. The Helix22 data security SDK is several generations enhanced since then. Dr. Statica also delivered the encryption for the world’s most secure phone, Katim.
Founder – Robert Statica PhD Founder – Kara Coppa Founder – Alex Maslov MS, MBA
Co-Founders of Wickr KatimTM Ultra Secure Smartphone
Finally, the Helix22 encryption is quantum computing ready so no need to redo all your data security methodologies in a couple of years when everything else becomes obsolete.
We like to refer to Helix22 as “22nd Century Data Security.”
Helix22 – Zero Risk