If you had though you heard the last of hackers taking over a hospital’s computer systems you were wrong. In late January three North Lincolnshire hospitals were infected with ransomware. Not only did the ransomware hold the system hostage, it forced them to cancel ALL appointments for two days. That would be a serious loss for any business. The infection went as far as even affecting the car parking barriers.
The hospitals did not end up paying, but did have to take their system down in order to remove the virus. Doing so is a costly and time consuming process, one that will take the hospitals some time to recover. While attacks like this can be crippling to a business, the business is not all that could suffer…
Experts are fearing that it is only a matter of time before they target equipment, such as machines used to regulate medicine intake or pacemakers. In fact a cybersecurity firm Bishop Fox claims that some home monitors can be hacked to be used as a weapon against cardiac devices, where they could drain the battery, turn the device on or off, or depending on the device… even deliver a shock.
As technology progresses, we too must keep pace with it. That means taking cyber security seriously and not thinking “that will never happen to me”. As we have seen the number of people it is reaching grows every day.
