146
After injecting cancer hospital with ransomware, crims threaten to swat patients
(www.theregister.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
146 points (98.0% liked)
Technology
59605 readers
3434 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If only hospitals weren't such lucrative businesses with millions of dollars to pay a ransom, they wouldn't be a target. No one is targeting ransomware to the Fire Departments or DMV.
The Dallas Fire Department was sure affected in their ransomware attack. https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/dallas-ransomware-attack-progress-one-week-later/287-f0af11f2-1c52-4d33-a706-8fdfa1f0e5f1
Municipalities are absolutely targeted by ransomware attacks. Texas has had several cities get hit within the past year or two alone. It takes down everything from their courts to their emergency services and water bill systems.
I mean most ransomware isn’t targeted at all.
Its more likely that they are required to have insurance that would cover ransomware due to the sensitive information they have on patients
It's this. It's also one of the most profitable forms of insurance for the insurance companies since everyone needs it but few end up using it, and the fact that insurance exists at all drives the prices way up (like every other industry they touch).
On the other hand, once people started paying, the ransomware scene became an actual industry. Before, the "send money to this number to get your files back" part was a bonus scam and you'd almost never get a response, so getting ransomed was a death sentence for a business that didn't have working backups. Now the encryption key is sent 99% of the time the ransom is paid, and larger groups even offer tech support to their victims if they have trouble decrypting.
Source: half-remembered snippets from last year's CompTIA Network Security course. Can't actually double check it since we live in a capitalist hellscape where information is rented and goes poof after a few months.
The NHS in the UK gets targeted all the time and they aren’t exactly rolling in cash
Finnish municipal services get targeted
Not yet, anyways.