Credit: Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center

Classic example of ransomware

Ransomware takes one-time bank account hacking to a new extreme. As we write this, in the USA a California hospital is dealing with a sustained attack that serves (unfortunately) as a classic example of ransomware.
BankVault is first and foremost committed to stopping business bank account hacking. Generally, this takes the form of a phishing email that leads to a compromised Windows PC. That endpoint PC then has malware injected into it that monitors behavior, logs keystrokes, collects logins and passwords and, in many cases, uses a man-in-the-browser attack to compromise 2-factor authentication. Then, when the time is right, the hacker becomes a thief and drains the business’ bank account.

As we have mentioned time and time again in the past, this kind of thievery is growing by leaps and bounds – affecting businesses everywhere. But there’s an even more nefarious form of cyber theft every business should know. It is called ‘Ransomware.’

Ransomware takes one-time bank account hacking to a new extreme. As we write this, in the USA a California hospital is dealing with a sustained attack that serves (unfortunately) as a classic example of ransomware. Last week the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center began experiencing outages and blocked access to much of its networked data, including patient health records, physician notes and prescription details. Within hours, the attack reduced hospital staff to using hand-written documents to log patient care details.

Soon, they received an email from an unnamed organization demanding the hospital pay 3.7 million dollars. If the hospital pays up, the hackers will allow them to regain control of their network and continue with business as usual.

The American FBI is now handling the crisis and has refused to comment. The hospital claims no patient records have been compromised, but one has to wonder how that could be given the hackers have complete control over the hospital’s network?

Ransomware is growing. In the last year alone, California law offices, construction companies, hospitals and other types of businesses, large and small, have been attacked. Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center is simply the latest. Ransomware attacks are especially dangerous because they, like business bank account hacking, gain access to networks through comparatively simple phishing attacks. Security experts who have spoken to Hollywood Presbyterian officials suspect phishing to be how this whole mess started. All though a simple phishing email.