Colonial Pipeline recovers but gas outages persist

Colonial Pipeline recovers but gas outages persist

Washington was running out of gasoline on Friday, even as the country's largest fuel pipeline network ramped up deliveries following a cyberattack and U.S. officials assured motorists that supplies would return to normal soon.

Gloria Tso reports.

Washington was running out of gas on Friday, even as U.S. officials assured Americans that supplies would return to normal soon.

The six-day Colonial Pipeline shutdown, the most disruptive cyberattack on record, has prompted widespread panic buying.

It's left many gas stations across the Southeast empty, and customers scrambling to fill up their cars.

As social distancing restrictions ease and more Americans hit the road, pump prices are at their highest in years.

The national gasoline average has climbed to over $3, the most expensive since 2014, according to the American Automobile Association.

Colonial Pipeline, the country's largest fuel network, announced Thursday it had restarted its entire system and was ramping up deliveries.

By Friday, a Colonial spokeswoman said the pipeline is shipping at normal rates again.

But gas outages have persisted.

"I'm gonna have to fill up again probably before getting to North Carolina, there's a big time gas shortage there so I'm probably gonna have to fill up on the way as well" The Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported Friday that DarkSide, the hacking group blamed for the pipeline attack, announced it would be shutting down.

DarkSide said it had also hacked four other companies, including a Toshiba subsidiary in Germany.

Colonial has not determined how the initial breach occurred, and hasn't disclosed whether they paid the hackers.

Bloomberg News reported that it paid nearly $5 million.

U.S. lawmakers have reintroduced legislation in the wake of the cyberattack to secure pipelines and pipeline facilities from cyberattacks.