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Ransomware Attack Forces Indiana Hospital To Turn Ambulances Away (thedailybeast.com) 41

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Hackers are going after U.S. hospitals with a fresh wave of cyberattacks this week just as coronavirus cases surge around the country. From a report: Eskenazi Health, a health-care service provider that operates a 315-bed hospital, inpatient facilities, and community health centers throughout Indianapolis, was crippled by a ransomware attack that began between 3:30 and 4 a.m. Wednesday morning, a spokesperson told The Daily Beast. By 8 a.m. Eskenazi Health was turning ambulances away and diverting patients to other hospitals as a result of the ransomware incident, the spokesperson said. "A ransomware attack happened," an Eskenazi spokesperson told The Daily Beast, confirming that all of Eskenazi Health's locations -- its hospital, its inpatient facilities, and its community health centers -- are impacted. The spokesperson added that Eskenazi Health was working to contain the ransomware by shutting down some services and operations in order to try to keep the malware from spreading through its systems.

"They took all of our systems down so they wouldn't get breached," the spokesperson said, confirming email systems and electronic medical records were still down as of Thursday evening. Eskenazi Health is not alone. Sanford Health, a Sioux Falls, South Dakota-headquartered health system which includes 46 hospitals and care locations in 26 states and 10 countries, said in a statement Thursday it had been hit with a cyberattack in recent days as well. Sanford Health did not confirm whether it was the victim of ransomware, but president and CEO Bill Gassen confirmed to The Daily Beast it was working to "contain" the impact. In both the Sanford Health and Eskenazi Health cases, patient data and employee data were not affected, officials said.
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Ransomware Attack Forces Indiana Hospital To Turn Ambulances Away More

Ransomware Attack Forces Indiana Hospital To Turn Ambulances Away

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  • I'd just like to personally thank to Garmin, JBS, Travelex, and all the others who made this twenty billion dollar industry possible. Keep up your hard work!

  • an act of war (Score:4, Informative)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @05:19PM (#61665287)
    Most attacts are nation state sponsored. Time to consider a cyber attack an act of war and respond accordingly.

    • Re:an act of war (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @05:43PM (#61665357)

      At the very least it's an act of terrorism.

      How many people have to die before we can call it that?

      • At the very least it's an act of terrorism.

        Part of the definition of terrorism is that it's ideologically motivated. While it doesn't fit that description, it does fit the description of extortion which is a serious crime.

    • Instead of causing a costly and unnecessary war, we could do something less drastic like sanctions and securing our own systems. Ransomware gangs are always a bunch of shortsighted idiots that have to hire someone that's barely able to program to make money. This means they are hitting very soft targets that any attacker could penetrate because it's basically Swiss cheese security. What these jackass hackers are doing is providing an expensive lesson in security that businesses (like this hospital) have

      • You didn't learn anything about Trumps tarrifs. (backfire...) Because the US doesn't actually manufacture anything but weapons, sanctions or tarrifs would only esciallate quickly causing a global depression which would lead to conventional then nuclear war anyway.

        • Clearly you are unaware our history of successfully sanctioning Russia. It seems you are the one who needs to do some learning.

      • no, ransomeware gangs are not a bunch of short sighted idiots. They are either organized crime or state sponsored spies. https://krebsonsecurity.com/20... [krebsonsecurity.com]
        The type of ransomware depends on the region of origin. To former soviet block countries, ransomware is a business. they encrypt, you pay, you get decryption keys back. To Asian state hackers, they're spies - looking for revenue projections, design plans, government secrets, counter intelligence information, etc. These type use ransomware to hide th

        • no, ransomeware gangs are not a bunch of short sighted idiots. They are either organized crime or state sponsored spies

          Fine, they are organized criminal idiots, who are bad at getting money and some are spies. The spies covering their tracks actually makes some sense but the people in it for the money are just soooo dumb.

    • If the wolves are eating your chickens you put up a fence, not go roaming the woods with a gun. Designing the network at a hospital so it's connected to the open internet sounds like a bad choice.

  • billing should be the ONLY TARGET!

  • Don't need ransomware to divert (Score:4, Interesting)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @05:47PM (#61665367)

    In Texas, hospitals all the way up to San Antonio are on divert because they have too few staff [imgur.com] to care for the exploding cases of covid coming from the unvaccinated. On the bright side, as the unvaccinated die off [thehill.com], they're opening up beds for others while raising the IQ of the country.

    • In Texas, hospitals all the way up to San Antonio are on divert because they have too few staff [imgur.com] to care for the exploding cases of covid coming from the unvaccinated. On the bright side, as the unvaccinated die off [thehill.com], they're opening up beds for others while raising the IQ of the country.

      Well, part of it is surely related to the unvaccinated and largely (35%?) COVID-infected coming across the border into these areas. Then you have the people who do live here who decided they'd be antivaxers and they're kind of paying for it. Then you have the problem that even for most of last year a lot of healthcare workers were basically laid off for some reason that eludes me. It isn't so much the lack of beds (at least here), it's the fact that the hospitals have run off the staff. Now with the recurre

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

      In Texas, hospitals all the way up to San Antonio are on divert because they have too few staff [imgur.com] to care for the exploding cases of covid coming from the unvaccinated. On the bright side, as the unvaccinated die off [thehill.com], they're opening up beds for others while raising the IQ of the country.

      Now now - the Anti-vaxxers are going to go Reee! and claim you are mean because you don't have empathy for the people who willingly got Covid-19. I've lost all my empathy for them, only the innocents they might infect and kill.

      Triage sucks, you have to choose who dies, but remember, these anti-vaxxers went into this voluntarily with full knowledge and understanding, and happy to accept whatever happens to them.

      There might be some hope - even in the sovereign nation of Texas https://www.houstonpublicmed [houstonpublicmedia.org]

      • Who benefits most from a down hospital during a pandemic? Hmmm.

        • Who benefits most from a down hospital during a pandemic? Hmmm.

          Not certain what you mean. Certainly people who might be critically ill through no fault of their own, when the ICU is full of anti-vaxxers.

          That's all part of the reason I lack empathy - Their denial might get them a bed, while someone with a heart attack has no where to go.

  • Having used /. since it was black and white, I'd like to offer a bit of my ancient wisdom: lynx. For fun, for safety, for profit.

  • Step #1: Outlaw all cryptocurrencies (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That will take care of at least 95% of all these ransomware attacks, as even cash is more easily traceable than cryptocurrency, as is deposits into offshore accounts.
    Make it more difficult for the criminals and state-sponsored cyberterrorists and they'll look to other more difficult methods.
    What we have right now is danegeld. Look it up if you don't know what that refers to.
  • I think this is not what nurses and doctors wanted. This has to be done by management that runs as a business. If this is true, we need to sue them for being assholes. No one is denied medical service in the US, it is illegal. Ransom ware is not a way out of taking care of humans.

  • Too bad that Biden left this hospital off his list to Putin.

  • How much does this country spend on cybersecurity every year? Does it do any good?
  • Require special permissions for operations that affect more than N files. Would that be a possible solution? Attacks could still do some damage by targeting critical files, but then those files could also require special permissions for modification. This is in essence what root privileges were for, but they have turned out to be too global and too easy to compromise. So add explicit access control requirements that require external input (a cryptographic hash on a USB drive) for each individual critica

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