• A hospital in Romania was targeted by a ransomware attack, with perpetrators demanding payment in cryptocurrency.
• The attack locked the medical records of the Saint Gheorghe Recovery Hospital in Botoşani, Romania, and demanded 3 BTC in ransom.
• The hospital cannot file reports and receive payments due to the hack, leaving the medical staff without salaries.
The Saint Gheorghe Recovery Hospital in Botoşani, Romania, was recently hit by a ransomware attack that has left the medical institution unable to file reports to the country’s health insurance fund and receive due payments. According to reports from Romania Insider, the hackers locked the medical records from December and left a message in English, demanding a ransom of 3 BTC (over $50,000 at current exchange rates).
The attack was well-prepared and neither the computer specialists from the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism nor experts working for the Romanian cybersecurity firm Bitdefender were able to decrypt the information. Dr. Cătălin Dascălescu, the hospital’s managing director, revealed that law enforcement authorities have launched an investigation.
The attack has left the hospital unable to file reports for the services performed in the last month of 2022 and receive the respective payments. As a result, the medical staff are unable to receive their salaries. However, officials at Romania’s National Health Insurance House have stated that they are working on a solution to resolve the issue.
Investigators believe that the hackers accessed the data remotely, although they do not yet know how they were able to do so. This is not the first time a healthcare institution has been targeted by cyber criminals, as the number of such attacks have been steadily increasing. These incidents highlight the need for better security measures in order to protect sensitive information and prevent such malicious activities.