ATLANTA — A North Carolina gas station is suing Colonial Pipeline over a ransomware attack that caused gasoline shortages across the Southeast.

EZ Mart 1 LLC filed a class action lawsuit against the Alpharetta-based pipeline, claiming Colonial “had no plan in place for ransomware attacks” that “resulted in fuel shortages in areas that the pipeline serviced ... causing a sharp increase in the price of gasoline for automobiles and other motor vehicles and a sharp decrease in convenience store sales.”

EZ Mart said it filed the lawsuit “on behalf of the more than 11,000 gas stations negatively impacted” by the attack.

The FBI confirmed a criminal group based in Russia named DarkSide was responsible for bringing down the Colonial Pipeline for five days last month. The pipeline carries 2.5 million gallons daily, about 45% of the fuel used on the East Coast.

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Colonial officials have said they took their pipeline system offline before the attack could spread to its operating system, and decided soon after to pay ransom of 75 bitcoins — then valued at roughly $4.4 million — in hopes of bringing itself back online as soon as it could.

In the lawsuit, EZ Mart said Colonial “intentionally, willfully, recklessly, or negligently” failed to take and implement “adequate and reasonable measures to ensure that the Pipeline’s critical infrastructure was safeguarded” and said gas stations “suffered damages in the aggregate in excess of $5 million.”

Channel 2 Action News contacted Colonial Pipeline for its reaction to the lawsuit. A representative sent us a statement saying:

“We are aware of the lawsuit and while we cannot comment on pending litigation, Colonial Pipeline worked around the clock to safely restart our pipeline system following the cyberattack against our company.”

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