Alarming study

Ransomware! Hackers are hunting down hospitals

Vulnerabilities in hospital IT can even be fatal for patients! However, this in no way deters cyber criminals from paralyzing computers in operating theatres, ensuring that emergency patients have to be transferred to other hospitals or stealing sensitive data. 

On the contrary: ransomware attacks on the healthcare sector have been booming for years. This is also shown by a recent study by Barracuda Networks, one of the world's leading IT security companies based in Innsbruck.

More cases than in last year's analysis
A random sample of 200 publicly reported ransomware attacks in the past twelve months showed that more than one in five hacker attacks (21%), in which data was encrypted and decryption was only promised against payment of a ransom, occurred in the healthcare sector - compared to 18% in the same analysis last year.

Hospitals are increasingly being targeted by cyber criminals, a recent study shows.(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

Attacks on universities and schools on the decline
15 percent of incidents affected the manufacturing industry, 13 percent companies in the technology sector. Incidents in the education sector halved from 18 percent in the previous year to "just" nine percent. Ransomware attacks are often difficult to detect and stop.

"Proven approaches" expose hackers
"Fortunately, there are still proven approaches that most attackers rely on, such as lateral movement," says Barracuda. This refers to a series of techniques that attackers use to gain access to additional resources after they have first breached the network defenses.

44 percent of all fended off attacks with ransom demands were detected in this way. Of course, this is little consolation for those who have fallen victim to a nasty hacker attack.