Hackers seem to be finding it easy to target healthcare providers these days especially when the crisis of Coronavirus spread is at its peak as this is evident from what has been reported in the past couple of weeks.
Earlier, reports were in that “Elite hackers” were targeting World Health Organization widely known as WHO. And last week it was revealed that healthcare workers in some parts of Europe where being targeted with Windows malware which infects a system in the disguise of information related to Corona but is, in reality, a file-encrypting malware.
Now, the news is out that hackers have forced the Italian government to shut down its Social Security website as they locked it down from access and were demanding $655 as crisis payout.
And the most intriguing part of this story is that the website was shut down when the government was receiving over 100 applications requests per second related to coronavirus benefits.
A team of cybersecurity experts from National Security Services has been pressed into service to investigate the incident in detail and is also in the process to prosecute the culprits.
Coming to the other news related to ransomware striking a healthcare firm, according to a report released by US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, a California based Biotechnology firm working on the mission to create a vaccine to fight the spread of Covid19 was reportedly attacked by ransomware in the 1st week of March 2020.
The name of the firm is 10x Genomics, and highly placed sources report that the hackers also stole some 1 terabyte of classical info before locking up the database.
However, the company has restored to normal operations from Friday last week and the law enforcement agency is investigating the data breach and the impact of the incident.
FYI, 10x Genomics happens to be one among the companies taking part in the International Alliance that is sequencing cells of patients who have recovered fully from Novel COVID 19 Virus to build treatment for the disease.
