Melbourne heart institute latest target of ransomware

An unexpected malware attack, which struck the Melbourne Heart Group the super-specialty clinic within Cabrini Hospital Malvern at Melbourne, resulted in undesirable chaos. Employees at MHG couldn't manage opening data files related to over 15,000 patients spanning more than 3 weeks because the malware infection corrupted those files.

Reportedly, the malware attack was actually for executing a hack via crippling of the target's server followed with corrupting the files stored on it. Cyber-criminals behind the infection then held the victimized institute at ransom, demanding crypto-currency in exchange of a decryption code. The attack led to locking of all records on some patients, while the remaining patients were notified their records didn't exist any more.

According to Dr. Michael Walsh chief executive officer of Melbourne Heart Group, the data files along with other computers holding information related to specific diagnostic patient suites have the experts own and handle them rather that the Cabrini Hospital doing it. These experts aren't Cabrini's employees. The incident hadn't compromised or affected patient-related computers, data storage or operations, while hospital patient information was safe from any breach. Meanwhile, safeguarding patient data is regarded with maximum importance; while it's certain responsibility that Cabrini fulfills with extreme diligence, Dr. Walsh is said to confirm with HITNA. www.healthcareit.com posted this, February 21, 2019.

Further according to Dan Slattery senior information security analyst at Webroot, hackers consider patient data as extremely precious because they generally use the stolen information for committing ID-theft and other crimes.

Emphasizing that the hacked computers' maintenance was separate from Cabrini's own network, the Hospital's management described the ransomware infection as restricted to computers under specialists-management. Ransomware purveyors popularly target healthcare organizations since the latter usually lack adequate cyber-security even as
they run patient-critical computers that prompt chances of them paying up.

Cabrini is one of those healthcare communities which are long under pressure for strengthening sensitive medical records' security that they handle everyday. Thus the ransomware attack on it is the latest hack occurring whilst Symantec's new stats agree with Proofpoint's recent research about finding ransomware operations receding while
BEC (business e-mail compromise) assaults escalate.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/26/2019