Colonial Pipeline executive to face Congress after US recovers most of ransom after hack

The chief executive of Colonial Pipeline – the company whose key U.S. petroleum pipeline was recently hit by a cyber attack -–will on Tuesday testify before Congress about the matter, with expected testimony about why his company paid millions in ransom and the recent increase in ransomware attacks. 

CEO Joseph Blount will testify before the Senate Homeland Security committee one day after the U.S. government announced it had recovered $2.3 million of the reported $4 million the ransom the company paid to the hackers to get the pipeline back online. The company paid the hacker group DarkSide in Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, according to the Associated Press.

"I will admit that I wasn't comfortable seeing money go out the door to people like this," Blount told The Wall Street Journal after the May 7 attack left parts of the East Coast without fuel for several day. "But it was the right thing to do for the county."

Blount will also testify Wednesday before the House Homeland Security committee.