A federal government left ‘completely blind’ on cyberattacks looks to force reporting

The Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, which led to hoarding and fuel shortages across the East Coast, is spurring new efforts in Congress to require critical companies to tell the government when they’ve been hacked.

Even leading Republicans are expressing support for regulations after this week’s chaos — a sharp change from past high-profile efforts that failed due to GOP opposition.

The swift reaction from lawmakers reflects the disruptive impact of the ransomware attack on Colonial, which prompted the company to shut down its 5,500-mile-long gasoline, diesel and jet fuel pipeline on May 7. The next five days of increasing chaos at the pump laid bare a major gap in Washington’s ability to respond: The vast majority of private companies don’t have to report cyberattacks to any government entity— not even those, like Colonial, whose disruptions can wreak havoc on U.S. economic and national security. And often, they choose to keep quiet.

That information gap leaves the rest of the country in the dark about how frequently such attacks occur and how they’re perpetrated. It also leaves federal authorities without crucial information that could help protect other companies from similar attacks.

Without reporting from companies, “the United States government is completely blind to what is happening,” Brandon Wales, the acting director of DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters on Thursday. “That just weakens our overall cyber posture across our entire country.” Wales said the solution was for Congress to require companies to report cyber incidents.

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