Some hacks are annoying, but some hacks can be extremely disruptive and even potentially life-threatening. Take for example where according to recent reports, Eskenazi Health, a hospital located in Indiana, has been forced to turn away ambulances arriving at its hospital with patients due to a ransomware attack.
For those who are unfamiliar, ransomware attacks are where a computer’s systems are encrypted by the hacker and the owner will have to pay a ransom to get the encryption key, if not all the data will be lost forever. For hospitals, this means that they might be locked out of their systems and will not be able to pull up patient files that might contain critical information like past medical records, allergies, and so on.
In this instance, the hospital attempted to stay ahead of the hackers by taking some of their services and operations offline to prevent further breaches, but this also meant that in turn, they would be crippling themselves, but we suppose it was necessary until it can be sorted out. According to the hospital, it seems that patient and employee data were not affected.
This is not the first time we’ve seen hospitals targeted by ransomware attacks and it’s not hard to see why they might make such tempting targets. This is because the files and systems used by hospitals are crucial in their day-to-day operations, and time is not necessarily a luxury that they have to sort it out and it would just be easier to pay the ransom.
Filed in . Read more about Hack and Security. Source: thedailybeast