Security News > 2020 > September > Universal Health Services Ransomware Attack Impacts Hospitals Nationwide

A ransomware attack has shut down Universal Health Services, a Fortune-500 owner of a nationwide network of hospitals.

In an official statement given out on Monday, UHS noted: "The IT Network across Universal Health Services facilities is currently offline, due to an IT security issue. We implement extensive IT security protocols and are working diligently with our IT security partners to restore IT operations as quickly as possible. In the meantime, our facilities are using their established back-up processes including offline documentation methods. Patient care continues to be delivered safely and effectively."

"One of the busiest hospitals in the region is currently sending away all ambulances to different smaller hospitals because of this, and they themselves are losing patients while they are waiting for lab results to be delivered by courier.four people died tonight alone due to the waiting on results from the lab to see what was going on," the post reads.

This is a similar situation to an incident this month at a Dusseldorf University hospital, where a ransomware attack resulted in emergency room diversions to other hospitals.

"Ransomware attacks are especially disastrous for healthcare as they block access to IT systems and patient data in hospitals, leading to inability to treat people, and might eventually cost lives. Yet, the recent Netwrix 2020 Cyber Threats Report has found that every third healthcare organization experienced a ransomware attack during the past few months, which is the highest result among all the verticals. Reason for such high rates is easy: healthcare sector is an easy target for hackers, giving the shortage of resources, legacy systems and the pressure that the sector faces in the current situation."

News URL

https://threatpost.com/universal-health-ransomware-hospitals-nationwide/159604/