Two Ontario based hospital networks were hit by a malware attack early this week locking down their database and offering network issues to staff and patients. The Listowel Wingham Hospital Alliance located in North of Stratford and Wingham Hospital in Northeast Huron County is the victims which have been digitally locked down from access by hackers.
Karl Ellis, the President and the CEO of the Canada based hospital issued a press statement yesterday stating that the attack was of ransomware genre and took place on the hospital network during the weekend, locking down access to patient records from early Monday.
How the malware spread to the network and who is behind the incident is yet to be probed.
Mr. Ellis has clarified that no data was compromised in the incident and a ransom note is yet to be received.
Note 1- The incident occurred when an official statement from the City of Stratford located in Ontario, Canada stated that their database was hit by a ransomware incident in April this year. And the Mayor confessed that they had to bow down to the demands of the hackers by paying them $75,000 in BTC to free up their database from the file-encrypting malware.
Note 2- Law enforcement across the world, for instance, FBI are urging the victims of ransomware not to pay the demanded ransom as it not only encourages crime but also doesn’t guaranty a decryption key on payment for sure.
