The incidents send medical staff back to the days of pen and paper
Several hospitals in the United States and Australia have been paralyzed by ransomware attacks, leading to the cancellation of all but the most urgent appointments and surgeries.
In the US, the outbreak affected three Alabama-based healthcare providers – DCH Regional Medical Center, Northport Medical Center, and Fayette Medical Center. Early on Tuesday, all of them were hit by a ransomware strain known as Ryuk, said the DCH Health System, which operates all three facilities.
Ryuk – which is detected by ESET endpoint protection as a variant of Win64/Filecoder.T – has previously been used in other highly disruptive attacks, including one that resulted in printing and delivery delays for a number of US newspapers late last year.
All three affected hospitals have implemented emergency procedures to ensure the safety of their patients. The DCH has given assurances that the hospitals are “still able to provide critical medical services to those who need it”.
On the other hand, patients with non-emergency health needs were encouraged to seek assistance in neighboring medical facilities. Only elective procedures and surgical cases that had been scheduled for Wednesday went ahead as planned.
There is no word on the demands of cyber-extortionists, according to an earlier press release that is no long ..
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