Cybercriminals are good at cashing emergency situations. And the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak is a good chance for them. An unknown hacker group locked down Czech Republic’s Brno University Hospital. The hospital is one of the profound laboratories in the nation for testing Coronavirus, and it’s having 140 confirmed cases. Authorities are still investigating the issue to find out who’s behind it and what their demands are.
Hacking in a critical situation
Brno University Hospital is so crucial, as it’s one of the 18 hospitals in Czech testing for Coronavirus. It’s been doing around 20 tests a day regarding this. The state government has already declared the outbreak as an emergency, and quarantined around 5,000 people. The small nation of Europe is already having 140+ confirmed cases of infection.
In the early hours of March 13th, Brno hospital made an announcement asking every employee to shut down the computers, and even canceled critical surgeries. Results for any several testings were delayed due to this impact. Eventually, the hospital website was down, and acute patients are immediately transferred to nearby St. Ann’s hospital.
Hospital authorities haven’t said much about this incident but shut down most of its IT network except biochemistry, radiology, hematology, tumor diagnostics and microbiology as there were on a different network. Czech National Cyber Security Center, IT staff and Police are investigating the issue to find more. We expect the attackers to a ransomware gang mostly, as they’re pretty opportunists of such situations.
Cybercriminals as opportunists
Ransomware groups couldn’t have a better chance than these. As governments should value their citizen’s health over anything, fraudsters as Samsam, Ryuk, etc would target critical institutions like hospitals to lockdown and demand a hefty ransom.
But, not all ransomware groups are bad. A report by BleepingComputer said Maze ransomware group Sai it won’t be hacking any socially vital institutions!
Via: BleepingComputer
