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Many hospitals still have no computers a week on.
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Catch up on the developing stories making headlines.Niall Carson/PA via AP, FILE
DUBLIN Staff coming into work at several Dublin hospitals on Friday, May 14 found an unsettling sight: Throughout the building, every computer screen was dark.
It was the result of the massive ransomware attack that crippled Ireland s health service s IT systems and that has left most of the country s hospitals without computers for over a week.
The outage has wreaked chaos, forcing the mass cancellation of routine appointments, blocking access to patients records, hobbling testing and some key treatment services, including for cancer patients.
FBI Identifies 16 Conti Ransomware Attacks on U.S. Healthcare May 25, 2021 14:22 GMT
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New Ransomware Attacks
The FBI has related the Conti ransomware community to at least 16 cyberattacks in the United States aimed at disrupting healthcare and first responder networks.
911 dispatchers, law enforcement officers, and emergency care services have all been targeted in the last year as medical services struggled to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the FBI s flash advisory (.PDF), Conti has been linked to at least 400 cyberattacks against organizations worldwide, with at least 290 originating in the United States.
In order to increase the likelihood of a payout, ransomware operators can penetrate a victim s network, steal sensitive files, and then launch the ransomware. If ransom requests are not fulfilled, companies risk having their data released or sold through a leaking platform.
It suggested that 16 US services were targeted, including law enforcement agencies, 911 dispatch services and municipalities, all within the last 12 months. These healthcare and first responder networks are among the more than 400 organisations worldwide victimised by Conti, over 290 of which are located in the US, the FBI Cyber Division said.
Conti is a type of ransomware as a service (RaaS) operation that is thought to be deployed by a Russian group known as Wizard Spider. It shares some of the same code as the notorious Ryuk strain and has recently been linked to attacks on Ireland s Health Service Executive (HSE) and its Department of Health (DoH).
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