As Ransomware Crisis Explodes, Hollywood Hospital Coughs Up $17000 In Bitcoin

Across the world, hackers are taking control of networks, locking away files and demanding sizeable ransoms to return data to the rightful owner. This is the ransomware nightmare, one that a Hollywood hospital has been swallowed up by in the last week. The body confirmed it agreed to pay its attackers $17,000 in Bitcoin to return to some kind of normality. Meanwhile, FORBES has learned of a virulent strain of ransomware called Locky that’s infecting at least 90,000 machines a day.

The Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center’s own nightmare started on 5 February, when staff noticed they could not access the network. It was soon determined hackers had locked up those files and wanted 40 Bitcoins (worth around $17,000) for the decryption key required to unlock the machines. Original reports had put the ransom at 9,000 Bitcoin (worth roughly $3.6 million), but Allen Stefanek, president and CEO of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, said in an official statement they were inaccurate.

Despite receiving assistance from local police and security experts, the hospital chose to pay the attackers. “The quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions was to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key. In the best interest of restoring normal operations, we did this.”

Reports had indicated some 911 patients had to be diverted to other hospitals, whilst pen and paper had to be used for some registrations and medical records. Stefanek said patient care had not been adversely affected and personal data had not been compromised.

Russian ransomware rampant at 90,000 infections a day

Ransomware variants are causing havoc across global networks, but this week saw the emergence of Locky, not a particularly sophisticated malware but one that’s spreading fast. It asks for between 0.5 and 1 Bitcoin (roughly $420) for users to unlock their files.

Kevin Beaumont, a British analyst at a manufacturing company, told FORBES he’d set up a domain that communicated with the Locky hackers. He estimated more than 100,000 PCs were infected just yesterday, whilst a contact at Fujitsu corroborated those findings, suggesting as many as 90,000 infections were taking place per day from the start of this week. At one point, said Beaumont, connections to his domain peaked at five requests per second. Prior to that it was around 3600 requests per hour – about one per second.