Colonial Pipeline
Posted on Wednesday, Jul 29, 2026
Show Notes
Colonial Pipeline made headlines when it was forced to shutdown a pipeline delivering more than 45% of the fuel in the United States due to a ransomware attack. This incident had many lessons and did something few other incidents have done, spur the government to take action.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Pipeline_ransomware_attack
https://www.axios.com/2021/05/10/fuel-pipeline-cyberattack-us-state-of-emergency
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b876592e-65d0-4098-99b8-f82a33d88490
https://cyote.inl.gov/content/uploads/24/2025/12/CyOTE-Case-Study_Colonial-Pipeline.pdf
Hosts
Chester Wisniewski (He/Him)
Chester Wisniewski is an old hat to information security having practiced the art professionally for more than 25 years. Starting out with a 300 baud modem in the 80s he became obsessed with exploring the world’s phone networks (phreaking?) which inevitably led to bulletin boards and early internet access in the mid-80s. The trust inherent in the system seemed absurd and this inspired Chester to pursue how we might build systems less prone to abuse. The rest is history.
Ben Verschaeren (He/Him)
Ben has been in Information Technology for two decades starting at the age of 14. Recently described by a senior executive as an “Adult Dennis the Menace”, Ben’s always up for a bit of cyber mayhem. Having worked across, Managed Services Providers, two of Australia’s largest Enterprises and an almost decade at a Security Vendor. Ben’s experience spans Wintel System Administration, Network Administration, Penetration Testing, and Software Development.