Security News > 2021 > September > Baby’s Death Alleged to Be Linked to Ransomware

A U.S. hospital paralyzed by ransomware in 2019 will be defending itself in court in November over the death of a newborn, allegedly caused by the cyberattack.

Springhill CEO Jeffrey St. Clair told the WSJ that the hospital handled the attack appropriately, staying open as "Our dedicated healthcare workers continued to care for our patients, because the patients needed us; and we, along with the independent treating physicians who exercised their privileges at the hospital, concluded it was safe to do so."

The closest yet was an incident from last September, when a German patient died while in an ambulance that had been re-routed due to a hospital having been seized by ransomware.

Case in point: Last September 2020, employees at Universal Health Services, a Fortune-500 owner of a nationwide network of hospitals, reported widespread outages that resulted in delayed lab results, a fallback to pen and paper, and patients being diverted to other hospitals.

Multiple ransomware gangs pledged not to hit hospitals because of COVID-19, including the Maze and DoppelPaymer groups.

Such attacks skyrocketed last October, in the middle of another U.S. COVID-19 surge, to the point that the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a security bulletin warning of "Credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers."

News URL

https://threatpost.com/babys-death-linked-ransomware/175232/