Universal Health Services (UHS) said that the attack it suffered from the Ryuk ransomware gang in September 2020 cost it $67 million. Universal Health Services is a Fortune 500 American company that provides hospital and healthcare services, and employs over 90,000 employees who provide services to approximately 3.5 million patients each year, in more than 400 healthcare facilities in the US and the UK.
UHS stated a few days ago that the high financial impact of the Ryuk ransomware attack is related to the majority of the adverse impact being attributable to, among other things, acute care services and the loss of operating income due to the related reduction in patient activity. This also includes certain labor costs, professional fees and other operating expenses incurred as a direct result of this security incident and the related disruption to the company's operations.
Universal Health Services also incurred significant expenses to restore operations as quickly as possible.
As BleepingComputer reports, UHS managed to restore most of its affected systems as well as hospital operating systems in late October, after beginning the process of restoring all business functions and IT infrastructure immediately following the attack.
Universal Health Services said it is continuing its investigation into the security incident , noting that so far there is no evidence to suggest that unauthorized access , theft or misuse of patient/employee data occurred
In October, the US government warned of attacks against healthcare organizations, including hospitals and healthcare providers.
Ryuk ransomware gang members have been observed hitting around 20 companies per week during the third quarter of 2020 and, starting in November 2020, are behind a massive wave of attacks on the US healthcare system.
Security researchers estimated that the RaaS business made at least $150 million. The losses reported by UHS last week follow two other similar disclosures over the past year, made by IT services provider Cognizant and Norwegian aluminum producer Norsk Hydro. The two companies reported revenue losses of up to $70 million and more than $40 million, respectively.
