Months After Hacks, DHS Sends a Warning About Hospital Ransomware (vice.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Since February, at least a dozen hospitals have been affected by ransomware, malware that encrypts a victim's files until they cough up a bounty to the hackers. In response, US-CERT, the country's Computer Emergency Readiness Team, issued an alert on March 31 warning potential victims of the risks, and how to protect themselves. But, considering that some hospitals have already had to divert emergency services, push high-risk operations to future dates, and even turn away some patients, is the alert too little, too late?

Comments

Contents of warning email from "CERT"

[JoeyRox]

To Hospital Facility,

Hello, my name is Mandori Tugelli, and I am a foreign national from the country of Nigeria. With great sadness and events my great uncle has passed away. To help in my sorrow I have learned that my uncle has left me a very large inheritance. Unfortunately to collect this money I require the help of a USA business such as yours because my uncle left all his funds in US Dollars. If you could kindly click the link provided below and fill out the banking information for you business I will gladly offer you 50% of the proceeds for helping me collect my inheritance.

Kind Regards,

Mr. Mandori Tugelli