Security News
German authorities said Thursday that what appears to have been a misdirected hacker attack caused the failure of IT systems at a major hospital in Duesseldorf, and a woman who needed urgent admission died after she had to be taken to another city for treatment. As a consequence, systems gradually crashed and the hospital wasn't able to access data; emergency patients were taken elsewhere and operations postponed.
Healthcare data breaches have fallen this year but could surge over the next few months as hospital records remain a top target, says CI Security. Published on Thursday, "The Healthcare Data Breach Report" specifically looks at data breaches reported by healthcare organizations from January through June 2020.
A dozen vulnerabilities have been found in OpenClinic GA, a popular open source hospital management system, including flaws that can be exploited to access sensitive information or install malware on the hosting server. OpenClinic GA is described as an "Integrated hospital information management system covering management of administrative, financial, clinical, lab, x-ray, pharmacy, meals distribution and other data." The product is used worldwide and it has been downloaded nearly 120,000 times from SourceForge.
Japanese car maker Honda has been hit by ransomware that disrupted its production of vehicles and also affected internal communications, according to reports. Some Honda factories around the world were forced to suspend production, though output from Turkey, India, USA and Brazil locations remain on hold at the time of writing.
They illustrate how insecure devices increase the cyber attack surface and pose a significant risk to the operational continuity of hospitals and patient safety. Say, in terms of regulations post-COVID, are you seeing any government movement in that direction? Making sure hospitals are better prepared for the day after COVID? Do you see hospitals actually better prepared for the next pandemic following this crisis?
A cybercriminal gang have been arrested for spreading the Locky ransomware among hospitals, among other crimes. These attacks were directed against several public institutions both in Bucharest and elsewhere, and more were planned.
Fresenius, Europe's largest private hospital operator and a major provider of dialysis products and services that are in such high demand thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been hit in a ransomware cyber attack on its technology systems. Based in Germany, the Fresenius Group includes four independent businesses: Fresenius Medical Care, a leading provider of care to those suffering from kidney failure; Fresenius Helios, Europe's largest private hospital operator; Fresenius Kabi, which supplies pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices; and Fresenius Vamed, which manages healthcare facilities.
In addition to the attack on the hospital in the Czech Republic, she cited a number of healthcare cyber incidents in France, Spain and Thailand, adding that there needs to be more collaboration worldwide on protecting critical health infrastructure in times of crisis. Ransomware attacks on healthcare providers rose 350% in the fourth quarter of 2019, and Emsisoft research shows that more than 759 healthcare providers were hit with ransomware last year.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday he was concerned by 'malicious' cyber attacks that have targeted Czech hospitals battling the novel coronavirus. "As the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic, malicious cyber activity that impairs the ability of hospitals and healthcare systems to deliver critical services could have deadly results," Pompeo said.
Microsoft is offering hospitals security tips to try to help. Though some ransomware groups have actually pledged to leave hospitals alone during the COVID-19 outbreak, other groups are clearly exploiting the situation.