A Vermont-based hospital network has now confirmed that it was a victim of ransomware cyberattack. Read on to know more…
In October, threat actors hit the Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn and the University of Vermont Health Network. The cyber attack took place on October 28 and disrupted services at the UVM Medical Center and affiliated facilities. A month later, the University of Vermont Medical Center was continuing to recover from the cyber attack that paralyzed the systems at the Burlington hospital.
In early December, Hospital CEO Dr. Stephen Leffler announced that the attack that took place in late October on the computer systems of the University of Vermont Medical Center is costing the hospital about $1.5 million a day in lost revenue and recovery costs.
Vermont Health Network that serves a chain of healthcare organizations in Vermont and Upstate New York has confirmed that it became a victim of a cyber attack on October 28th, 2020, crippling 600 of its applications with ransomware.
The IT staff of the healthcare network said that the attack was launched through a server vulnerability and the hackers were demanding an enormous sum as ransom. However, the technology staff of the hospital chain did not want to bow down to the demands of hackers and so are trying to regain data from the backups.
“On Tuesday, hospital officials said its information technology workers found a file directing them to contact the attackers if they wanted their systems restored, but it did not contain a request for money.” states the post published by the Associated Press.
Damage Control
Dr. Stephen Leffler estimated that they are about 70% recovered from the attack and that they are still working to determine the root cause of the attack.
Dough Gentile, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Burlington based University of Vermont Health Network (UVHN) confirmed the incident and stated that it might take at least a week’s time to restore the data as it needs to rebuild around 1,300 servers. Reports are in that hackers accessed or stole no patient data. After the cyber incident, UVHN has taken all security measures to heighten up its defense line against ransomware attacks.
“It’s become clear, really this is an arms race. I think you’ve all seen in the news some of the recent sophistication of cyberattacks that are being launched and it’s really just going to continue,” Gentile said. “So, we all have to stay vigilant. We all are going to continually have to update our tools and our approaches to try to stay ahead of the bad guys in this situation.”
FBI Investigation
The officials of the Vermont hospital contacted the FBI, which is continuing to investigate. Later, FBI issued a press statement on a last weekend that some adversaries were trying to hack into the networks of public and private agencies to steal data. And the cyber attack launched on Vermont Hospital Network that the attacks have already started.
The same day as the attack on UVM Health Network, the FBI and two federal agencies warned cybercriminals were ramping up efforts to steal data and disrupt services across the health care sector.
In 2020, especially after the Corona Virus launched lockdown started, threat actors are seen launching sophisticated cyber attacks where they first steal data and then encrypt a database until a ransom is paid.