Warner says U.S. needs better cyber protections

WASHINGTON, DC. (WVIR) - Virginia U.S. Senator Mark Warner said Thursday that we need to up our game on cyber protections after seeing the impact a single company being hit can have on one-third of our country.

Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline was the target of a hack-induced shutdown that was responsible for a national gasoline shortage.

“We see the effect of what happens when one critical infrastructure company is shut down,” said Warner. “If 16,000 companies were shut down simultaneously, our economy would come to a screeching halt. We need, and in face we don’t even have a requirement at this point that those companies that are effected report in a near immediate term to some public/private entity that could actually respond.”

Warner also said there is no doubt that our adversaries, like Russia, are learning from these incidents.

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