DailyPost 2159
FRENCH HOSPITAL HACKED – RANSOMWARE ONSLAUGHT UNABATED
If ransomware attacks are termed as the high-end cybercrime epidemic as it stands today, we would be hitting the bull’s eye. Keeping your head in sand will in no way improve the situation, on the other hand, it would get bad to worse, till a stage when we don’t know what to do with it. We have an instance of death due to ransomware attack in a hospital in Germany in 2020. This was the first case of a fatality being linked to such a cyber-attack. The WannaCry ransomware attack impacted the National Health Service, UK, so profoundly in 2017 that it has become a watershed moment in that country and beyond.
There would be some other instances of similar nature, where hospitals have been impacted in other countries too. Suffice to say hospitals are a part of the critical infrastructure and will remain on the radar of cyber crimes on a near perpetual basis. Ransomware attacks seems to the biggest threat today. Cyber attackers have been able to disrupt services of French hospital and have demanded a ransom of $10 million. The hospital director says that they will not pay ransom. Very rare to find victim organizations of ransomware attack taking such a steadfast stand.
The CHSF hospital center in Corbell-Essonnes, southeast of the French capital has been the recent victim of ransomware attack, that began late Saturday night. It has caused disruption in their services. It has been reported that the nurses have to file data by hand. The IT system at the hospital has come to standstill because of this cyber-attack. Given the situation the non-critical services have be directed to other places. The staff is left with no choice but to work with limited resources. It is back to the grind.
”Each day we need to write patients’ medications, all the prescriptions, the discharge prescriptions,” the hospital said. For the nurses, instead of feeding the data on to the computer, they now need to file it manually from scratch. “You know the hospital would not pay, has not paid and will not pay this type of ransom.” This stand may be the beginning of a fight against ransomware attack, the technical fight would follow. The specialized cyber-crime police are investigating. Hope they get the much-awaited breakthrough. Cyber-attacks targeting hospitals has been increasing in France recently. It was pegged at 380 last year, a 70% increase from 2020.
WITH HOSPITALS BECOMING ANOTHER THEATER OF RANSOMWARE ATTACKS, THE OVERALL IMPACT WOULD BE DEADLY.
Sanjay Sahay