18 Mar Hackers hit another hospital with ransomware, encrypt four computers
Ottawa Hospital says no patient data was compromised and the IT staff wiped the infected systems clean.
Attackers broke into Ottawa Hospital’s network with ransomware that initially encrypted four computers.
Hospital officials publicly stated that its IT staff has since wiped the machines clean, restored necessary data through backup copies, and added that none of the other 9,800 computers were affected and no patient data was compromised.
The ransomware attack against Ottawa Hospital is the latest in a string of cybercriminal attempts to gain access to hospital computers then lock down that data and demand payment, typically in Bitcoin, to decrypt it.
“We are currently seeing extraordinarily huge volumes of JavaScript attachments being spammed out, which, if clicked on by users, lead to the download of a ransomware,” security specialist Trustwave explained in a blog post.
Trustwave’s Spam Research Database, in fact, found some 4 million malware-bearing emails sent during a seven-day period earlier this month, with malware comprising nearly 20 percent of all spam sent.