Dear friends – if you get a phone call, email, text message, or pretty much any kind of communication you weren’t expecting…and they ask you to provide your personal information or go out on the internet, stop. Just stop right there and take some time to verify the legitimacy of the exchange. Any company you do business with will be very understanding and will have no problem allowing you to call them back via their publicly available contact information.
This goes doubly so when you work for a public or private organization, or a pipeline company. Even if your job is relatively low-security, inadvertantly giving bad actors access too your computer could give them the “foot in the door” they need to do substantial harm. Trust no one.
When the Colonial Pipeline Company’s systems were attacked, and in an abundance of caution they shut down their pipeline, people panicked. They rushed to fueling stations, and in many areas bought all the available gas. I’m not normally one to panic, but I did learn a valuable lesson in 2020 when I didn’t go out and buy toilet paper. We never had to go without clean backsides, but only because a friend of mine was able to secure us a twelve-pack while the store shelves stayed empty.
So on Tuesday evening I went out and sat in line for two hours to top off the truck, and the gas can (see previous post about gas cans and aliens). I watched people be especially impatient with one another, and in some cases just plain mean. I didn’t see the kind of shenanigans that were reported, like first fights or people putting gas in trash bags, but tension was high and none of that surprises me.
All in all, many stations where we were in North Carolina ran out of fuel and stayed dry for a while, but many others did not. When it was time to pack up and head to South Carolina, we had no problem keeping fuel in the tank.
I hope everybody else was who was affected by the panic was able to get through it as painlessly as we did. If not, you have my sympathy.
-Adam
Remember: stay calm and trust no one.