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A 'hack' collapses a hospital network in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic

2020-09-28T19:38:45.141Z


Universal Health Services healthcare workers have been unable to access computers with patient medical information since the weekend due to the attack, with the danger that internees will die from the problem.


By Kevin Collier - NBC News

A network of hospitals in the United States was attacked in what appears to be one of the 

largest

hacks 

in the country's history of a medical system.

Computer systems at Universal Health Services, which manages more than 400 sites across the United States,

began to fail this weekend.

In some of the clinics and hospitals, the workers are having to fill out the information of all the patients on paper and in handwriting, according to people who are going through this situation.

Although Universal Health Services has not spoken as a group, a person with knowledge of what happened, who requested anonymity because he does not have permission to speak to the media, indicated that "it tastes and smells like a

ransomware

attack 

." 

These attacks with cyber-scam programs tend to move quickly over shared computer networks.

They put an encryption on the files and a payment is demanded to be able to unlock them.

It has become a fairly common cyberattack tactic, but has

hardly been seen on this scale against medical facilities.

[Tips to avoid cyber attacks while your children study at home]

In early September, a patient in a German hospital died when a

ransomware

attack 

 forced healthcare workers to move her to another hospital.

It is believed to be the

first death caused by a blackmailing cyber program.

It is common for 

hackers 

who carry out these attacks to wait until it is the weekend, when a company does not have as many IT workers connected.

Two people who work in different Universal Health Services hospitals, who asked not to reveal their names because they do not have authorization to speak about it, said that the computers began to slow down and

by Sunday morning they would not even turn on.

"The system is completely down," said a UHS employee in North Dakota.

They arrest a student for alleged cyber attack on the Miami-Dade school district network

Sept.

3,202000: 26

Another person who works at a UHS Arizona site commented that "the point-and-give system is all online, so this has been difficult."

That is, the information on what medicines to give each patient is online and is updated every night.

"We've had to

mark almost every pickup by hand,"

said the person from Arizona, "it's a bit off the bat."

[A cyber attack stole information from airports and border points]

Ransomware 

attacks 

can be devastating for hospitals.

In 2017, a program dubbed WannaCry, created by cybercriminals working with the North Korean government, moved around the world. 

It ended up affecting the British National Health System (NHS) even though that network was not even the original targets of the program.

In total, the attack put at least 80 health facilities in check, although there is so far no record of anyone dying as a result.

Kenn White, a computer engineer who has worked in hospital networks for more than a decade, said delays in care caused by cyber-blackmail attacks can have dire consequences for patients.

"

If the nursing or medical staff cannot access laboratory results, radiology or cardiology reports, that dramatically delays treatment

. In extreme cases, it can force centers to redirect care to other clinics," he said. White.

He added that "when these systems go down, there is a

very real possibility that someone will die."

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2020-09-28

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