A few days ago, the sadly-predictable news broke that a U.S. hospital had been hit with a ransomware attack. Initial reports were that hackers demanded that Hollywood (CA) Presbyterian Medical Center pay $3.4M in bitcoins to regain access to its data. The hospital refused, and began working with paper to meet its patients’ needs. However, it was later reported that the $3.4 million number was wrong and the hospital was only asked to pay $17,000.
The hospital chose to pay the ransom and got data access back. But the mere fact that Hollywood Presbyterian got off relatively easily shouldn’t blind us to the growing ransomware threat, nor the steps we need to take to address this crisis.
