Cybersecurity and University Hospital Attack

All is relatively well here at Woesnotgone Meadow, where everyone has above average bandwidth.

In the Meadow, we have three nearby universities. Most visitors there are on-campus for a robust, enlightening education. At times, we do need to visit the hospital for care with the university cases, which require a bit more expertise than at the local urgent care facility.

The University of Maryland hospital system was recently attacked with malware. This took the form of ransomware. The attack infected 250 of the hospitals 27k devices. These were mostly desktop computers. As part of the remediation process these were quarantined. The infected systems were not encrypted by the malware. Thus they did not need to pay for a decryption key. The virus was isolated before it could spread to other systems. Fortunately, this did not affect patient care. There was also no direct evidence patient data or other information was compromised with the attack. The medial system was working with the FBI and US Department of Homeland Security regarding the issue.

Thanks for visiting Woesnotgone Meadow, where the encryption is strong, and the O/Ss are always using the latest version.

Resources

Davis, J. (2018, December 11). Malware attack hits university of maryland medical system. Retrieved from https://healthitsecurity.com/news/malware-attack-hits-university-of-maryland-medical-system

Dissent. (2018, December 10). University of Maryland medical system investigating malware attack. Retrieved from https://www.databreaches.net/university-of-maryland-medical-system-investigating-malware-attack/

Meeham, S. (2018, December 10). University of Maryland medical system investigating malware attack. Retrieved from https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/higher-ed/bs-md-umms-hack-20181210.html

Zumer, B. (2018, December 10). UMD medical system restores computer systems after malware attack. Retrieved from https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/umd-medical-system-restores-computer-systems-after-malware-attack

About the Author - Charles Parker, II has been working in the info sec field for over a decade, performing pen tests, vulnerability assessments, consulting with small- to medium-sized businesses to mitigate and remediate their issues, and preparing IT and info sec policies and procedures. Mr. Parker’s background includes work in the banking, medical, automotive, and staffing industries.