Cyber Criminals Upping The Ante
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Attack forced an online shutdown of the hospital’s systems.
Experts have been warning of the increasing dangers of ransomware attacks for months as Health IT Outcomes reported, and recent events are validating their predictions. Attacks against Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in California in February and Methodist Hospital in Kentucky in March have shown ransomware was a serious threat to healthcare.
Now, The Washington Post reports a third attack has been made public, this time against Washington-based MedStar Health, in which a virus infected the hospital’s computer network and forced the shutdown of email and records database.
The FBI is investigating this latest breach, though MedStar officials say there is “no evidence that information has been stolen.” Company spokeswoman Ann Nickels said in a statement, “MedStar acted quickly with a decision to take down all system interfaces to prevent the virus from spreading throughout the organization. We are working with our IT and cybersecurity partners to fully assess and address the situation.”
The Washington Post called the event a “ransomware” attack in which a hacker was demanding $19,000 as payment for releasing data.
“The attempt to negatively impact an institution designed to save lives and care for those in need is a sad and troublesome reality of our times,” MedStar Health CEO/President Kenneth A. Samet said. “Not only for MedStar Health, but for our entire industry and the communities we serve.”
Experts are also waning a new version of ransomware has emerged, called PowerWare. Security Affairs reports this new version of ransomware exploits PowerShell, the native Windows framework. What makes it even more dangerous is that it is fileless.
One reason medical facilities are particularly vulnerable to these attacks is because they don’t properly train their employees on how to avoid being hacked, Sinan Eren, general manager at Avast Mobile Enterprise told The Washington Post. Eren has worked in cybersecurity for government and healthcare organizations for two decades. “It’s not like the financial-services industry, where they train employees how to spot suspicious emails,” said Eren.
Another factor making hospitals ripe targets for cybercriminals is that many of them still have outdated computer systems that can’t easily fend off such attacks. Many institutions lack the funding to make the necessary upgrades. “There’s a lack of budget, a lack of talent to handle these issues,” Eren explained. “Sometimes the human capital might not be there. All these things are an incremental cost to their systems. Therefore, they kind of push the can down the road to deal with technical updates later.”
Ultimately, these attacks highlight the fact data security is currently working reactively to counter cyberthreats. As cybercriminals become increasingly sophisticated in their attacks, IT security measures need to become more and more proactive in their protection of files and information, and hospitals need to procure the funding to update their systems accordingly to ensure that they are capable of meeting today’s most likely threats.