Malware Riddles Missouri Healthcare Facility
In May, Missouri’s Blue Springs Family Healthcare found its systems were infected with various forms of malware, including ransomware. All of the forms of malware were not disclosed, nor was the ransom demand. The only thing that seems to be quite clear is, the hackers had full access to all of the facility’s systems — including patient data.
Although it remains unclear if the data has been copied, it has been confirmed, approximately 45,000 patient files were exposed. Healthcare IT News stated,
“The impacted data included patient names, Social Security numbers, account numbers, driver’s licenses, disability codes, medical diagnoses, addresses and dates of birth. Combined, this type of data could be used by hackers for both identity and medical fraud.”
Since, the facility has made several changes in an attempt to prevent future attacks, as well as limit damages. So far, they have changed their electronic medical records systems to automatically encrypt files, preventing access to the data, if systems were to be breached again. They have also installed new software to monitor unauthorized access, along with an intrusion prevention system, with a firewall.
Again, this is all great — but unless they have a security solution that is actively implementing an application whitelisting technology, malware will continue to invade the system.
Other Ransomware Attacks
For a list of ransomware attacks that have already taken place in 2018, you may click here. We have also created a map, see below, of the ransomware attacks that have taken place in the U.S.
