New York Medical Facility Riddled with Ransomware
Finger Lakes Health, of Geneva, New York was infected with an unknown ransomware variant on March 18, 2018. Therefore, the medical facility’s systems were left completely encrypted, with an unknown third-party demanding a ransom payment. The amount of the payment has not been disclosed, and it remains unclear if Finger Lakes plans to make the payment. According to Becker Hospital Review, the facility is working to regain access to their systems with IT professionals and law enforcement.
Officials for Finger Lakes Health do not believe any patient data was compromised. Their systems will remain offline while they attempt to remediate. In the meantime, staff has gone back to paper filing. Finger Lakes Health spokesperson stated to Becker Hospital Review,
“We immediately implemented our manual downtime protocol and procedures which we have practiced for circumstances when computer access is limited. We, like many other health systems and businesses, have prepared for this inevitability due to the increase in these types of incidents.”
One word sticks out, “inevitability”. Ransomware is not an inevitable event, if you have the right security protection. It is clear, traditional blacklist security solutions cannot keep up with known malicious cyber threats. It is clear it is not an effective means to protect your most precious data. Ransomware, or any other cyber threat, does not have to be inevitable. It’s preventable, when a proactive solution is implemented. It’s time for a different approach. It is time to start using a security solution that uses an automated, global whitelist solution.
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.
