Cyber attacks against hospitals are an almost common occurrence in the US and unfortunately often lead to increased patient mortality rates, a new study says.
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The study, conducted by the Ponemon Institute, interviewed more than 600 IT professionals in more than 100 healthcare facilities. Its findings conclude that the fact that hackers are attacking American medical centers at a steady rate is leading to patients receiving worse care and being more likely to die.
Two-thirds of respondents in the Ponemon study who had suffered ransomware attacks said they interrupted patient care and 59% of them found that they increased the length of stay of patients...putting a strain on the hospital. Almost a quarter said it led to increased mortality rates in facilities their.
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In a ransomware attack, hackers gain access to an organisation's computer networks, lock up its data and often demand a ransom not to release the data. Hospitals don't always make public whether they have been victimized.
There have been at least 12 ransomware attacks on healthcare facilities in the US this year, said Brett Callow, an analyst at ransomware firm Emsisoft. But because some healthcare companies represent multiple locations, those attacks represented 56 different facilities, he said.
More than half of the healthcare facilities represented in the survey had been infected with ransomware in the past three years, according to the Ponemon study.
In 2020, a woman from Alabama sued her hospital, which had been the victim of a ransomware attack after her newborn baby died - the Case study is in progress.
However, there is no doubt that persistent cyber attacks against hospitals have caused serious damage to patients, said Josh Corman, vice president at cybersecurity firm Claroty and author of a landmark report on the Impact of ransomware in the health care.
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While ransomware attacks are generally considered private criminal enterprises, some of the most prolific hackers behind them have ties to Governments.
The US has also accused the North Korea that it is responsible for a different kind of ransomware targeting US hospitals, called Maui.
Source of information: nbcnews.com
