By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Shares of cybersecurity firms were up in Monday's premarket on prospects of more business after last week's cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline raised awareness of the need for effective defenses.
FireEye (NASDAQ:FEYE) shares were up more than 6%, Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) over 3%, SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) 1.5% while Palo Alto Networks (NYSE:PANW) and Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) were both up short of 1%. According to Reuters, FireEye is among those dealing with the attack.
With cyberattacks increasing, particularly those involving non-state actors, call to enhance cyber security can only get louder hereon.
Colonial operates more than 5,500-miles of pipelines from Texas to New Jersey and the ransomware attack forced the company to shut a critical fuel network supplying populous eastern states.
The company carries around 2.5 million barrels a day of gasoline and other fuels from refiners on the Gulf Coast to consumers in the mid-Atlantic and south eastern U.S.
The Reuters report said the hackers are suspected to be a professional cybercriminal group called DarkSide, one of many ransomware gangs extorting victims. Its avoidance of targets in post-Soviet states suggests to some that it is based in the former USSR..
In the Colonial attack, the hackers took more than 100 GB of data, the report said.