U.S. government and industry authorities are warning the healthcare sector of a surge in distributed-denial-of-service attacks in recent days against hospitals and other medical entities instigated by Russian nuisance hacking group KillNet.
The American Hospital Association on Monday issued an alert for its members based on a warning also issued Monday by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center.
John Riggi, national adviser for cybersecurity and risk at the AHA, tells Information Security Media Group that several U.S. hospitals and healthcare systems in recent days have been hit with denial-of-service attacks by the Russian group. He declined to name the affected entities or their regions but said the number of victims so far is less than 10.
“A pro-Russian activist group has specifically targeted U.S. hospitals and health systems for these denial-of-service attacks, which basically means they’re overloading hospital and health systems, public websites causing them to crash, making them unavailable and potentially, in some instances, might even impact the patient portal,” he says.
