The gas may be flowing again, but the White House is more worried than it's letting on about the potential fallout of the Colonial Pipeline hack that caused fuel shortages and triggered price increases, Axios has learned.

Behind the scenes: Senior Biden officials are acutely sensitive to the images of lines outside gas stations before Memorial Day — the typical launch to the summer driving season. Republicans also are jumping on the bandwagon, suggesting Joe Biden is a modern-day Jimmy Carter.

The nation’s largest fuel pipeline restarted operations Wednesday, days after it was forced to shut down by a gang of hackers.

The disruption of Colonial Pipeline caused long lines at gas stations in the Southeast due to distribution problems and panic-buying, draining supplies at thousands of gas stations.

Colonial initiated the restart of pipeline operations late Wednesday, saying in a statement that “all lines, including those lateral lines that have been running manually, will return to normal operations.”

President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday boosting America's cyber defenses following a ransomware attack on a company that operates a pipeline that provides nearly half of the gasoline and jet fuel for the country's East Coast.

The broad order, which the administration had been working on for months, aims to strengthen cybersecurity for federal networks and outline new security standards for commercial software used by both business and the public.

President Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order intended to improve US cybersecurity after the hack of the Colonial Pipeline caused massive disruption to the US fuel market.

The order establishes a new multiagency Cybersecurity Safety Review Board to review incidents and mandates that federal systems log cybersecurity incidents and use multifactor authentication and stronger encryption.

President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at shoring up the federal government’s digital defenses as his administration grapples with cybersecurity crises, including a ransomware strike on a major fuel pipeline that has caused gas shortages.

Less than four months into his tenure, Biden has had to respond to a Russian cyberespionage operation that affected nine federal agencies and about 100 American companies, as well as a Chinese cyberhacking campaign that compromised tens of thousands of small and midsize firms that used Microsoft Exchange email servers.

As the nation grapples with an unprecedented cybersecurity attack on a major East Coast fuel pipeline, the national gas price average hit $3 a gallon for the first time in seven years.

The national average price of regular gasoline is just slightly over $3 a gallon on Wednesday, according to data from the American Automobile Association. The last time average prices were at these levels was in November 2014.

President Biden has overseen a steep increase in gas prices since taking the oath of office in January.

On January 21, an average gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.33, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). By the start of this week, that figure had risen to $2.96 and today, AAA pegged the average gallon at $2.99, the highest mark since November 2014.

Parts of the Southeastern U.S. are seeing gasoline shortages following a cyberattack that shut down Colonial Pipeline.

As of Tuesday afternoon, nearly 8 percent of Virginia gas stations, more than 6 percent of North Carolina gas stations and more than 4 percent of Georgia gas stations were without fuel, according to Gasbuddy analyst Patrick De Haan.

Other states, like Florida and South Carolina, also saw some outages.

A growing number of gas stations along the East Coast are without fuel as nervous drivers aggressively fill up their tanks following a ransomware attack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline, a critical artery for gasoline. The panic-buying threatens to exacerbate the supply shock.

As of 4 pm ET Tuesday, 8.5% of gas stations in North Carolina and 7.7% in Virginia didn't have gasoline, according to outage figures reported by GasBuddy, an app that tracks fuel prices and demand. The Virginia figure was flat from 11 am ET, while North Carolina was up from 5.8% previously.

“The biggest U.S. gasoline pipeline will not resume full operations for several more days due to a ransomware cyberattack… The FBI attributed the cyberattack to DarkSide, a group believed to be based in Russia or Eastern Europe.” (Reuters)

On Monday, President Joe Biden stated, “So far, there is no evidence based on — from our intelligence people that Russia is involved. Although there is evidence that the actors — ransomware — is in Russia. They have some responsibility to deal with this.” White House

Both sides worry about the ongoing risk of cyberattacks: