Cyber criminals demand $10M ransom to release French hospital

Cyber attacks generally speaking are never good, and can potentially ruin lives with stolen data, or locked access to much-needed computers. However, it's a special kind of evil when used against hospitals, disrupting important medical systems.

Unfortunately, attacks like these are not unheard of, and earlier this year the Costa Rican healthcare system was held hostage by crypto-hackers. Now, according to BleepingComputer, an attack is disrupting the Center Hospitalier Sud Francilien in France. The CHSF, which is about 28km (or 17 miles) south of Paris, is currently having to turn patients away and postpone surgeries due to the ransomware.

The 1,000-bed hospital was attacked on Sunday and still hasn't regained control of its systems. This not only affects things like the hospital's business software but also patient admissions and storage, including that of medical imaging. Patients are still being assessed at the CHSF, but many require transfers to other medical centres to get the treatment they require.

"This attack on the computer network makes the hospital's business software, the storage systems (in particular medical imaging), and the information system relating to patient admissions inaccessible for the time being," a translation from the CHSF announcement explains.

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According to French publication Le Monde, the attackers are demanding a $10 million ransom to release a decryption key to free up the hospital's systems. Targeting a hospital for what looks like just the demand of money is just the lowest move, even for ransomware attackers.

Authorities aren't sure who the culprits of the attack are as of yet, but suspect the LockBit 3.5 ransomware is being used. LockBit as an organisation states that attacks on hospitals are not allowed with its ransomware, so if that is the case the attackers might find themselves in trouble from both ends of the law.

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