Cyberattack Hits Hospital Chains in Pennsylvania and Other States
In the U.S. almost 800 healthcare providers were hit last year by viruses and specifically ransomwares. Besides being a huge financial burden, loss of access to patient data and records could lead to dangerous care results in our fragile hospital system. A major hospital healthcare facility chain across the U.S was hit by a ransomware virus. Burdening further an already stressed system under the weight of a coronavirus pandemic response.
UHS Inc. runs more than 250 hospitals and clinics in the U.S.. It is unknown how many of the facilities have been affected by the ransomware virus. UHS workers have been reporting online across the country that once the computer systems were inaccessible rendering care became a scramble for the medical professionals. This led to longer emergency room waits, test results like covid-19 unavailable and possibly patients being redirected to other hospitals in the area. Electronic patient records were no longer available and monitoring stations seized to work and report patient status.
John Riggie, a cybersecurity expert, called it a “suspected ransomware attack”, confirming the online stories from employees. Ransomware is a computer virus that infects a computer system and immediately modifies the Operating System to disable security settings. Once the computer is compromised, it begins the process of searching for data, such as pictures, videos and documents. The files that are found on the computer and servers, the malware encrypts and the virus makes the files inaccessible. Hackers have been increasingly targeting healthcare providers during the coronavirus pandemic. Healthcare targets have been profitable for the cybercriminals to extract and demand payment for patient’s records that have been encrypted and made inaccessible by ransomware.
In addition to encrypting the data on the compromised computers the hackers have been downloading the data in parallel. The downloaded patient data is then used to extort more money from the victims. These attacks are not simply IT inconveniences, they lead to patients being directly affected. In Düsseldorf, Germany after a cyber attack caused computers servers to be taken off-line, a critically ill patient died, when she couldn’t be admitted. The clinic could not process or monitor the patient without their equipment functioning and was forced to be taken to a different hospital, dying en route.
Estimated cost of virus attacks in the U.S. last year is over $9 billion dollars. The financial losses are accumulated in terms of ransom payments, lost productivity, down-time and backup recovery times. Antivirus and backups are a must have to prevent ransomware. Since there are new viruses released on a daily basis, no Antivirus software can catch them 100% of the time. The only safe way to recover from ransomware attacks is through daily backups.