I heard to day that there has been a ransomware attack on HHS. Seriously? Unbelievable. This goes far beyond money and is purposely trying to hurt millions of people. Ruthless, cowardly and downright mean. Thankfully HHS was ahead of the curve and was able to quickly recognize the attack and thwart it before it did any real damage. As Bloomberg reports;
“HHS has an IT infrastructure with risk-based security controls continuously monitored in order to detect and address cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. On Sunday, we became aware of a significant increase in activity on HHS cyber infrastructure and are fully operational as we actively investigate the matter. Early on while preparing and responding to COVID-19, HHS put extra protections in place. We are coordinating with federal law enforcement and remain vigilant and focused on ensuring the integrity of our IT infrastructure.”
This happened while HHS was preparing it’s response to the Coronavirus.
Bloomberg news was the first to report that hack, which officials surmise was meant to hamper HHS’ ability to respond to the ongoing public health crisis.
Anonymous sources told the news outlet that the cyber intrusion – which reportedly involved a sustained attack with millions of hits to the agency’s servers over the course of several hours – didn’t cause any substantial damage to the health agency’s response capabilities, and didn’t result in the exfiltration of any data.
HHS has not yet responded to a request for comment from Healthcare IT News.
Some government officials connected the cyberattack to a subsequent tweet from the National Security Council, suggesting that the hackers – potentially foreign bad actors – sought to spread misinformation among an American public already on edge about the nationwide COVD-19 outbreak.
In my years, I have seen some ruthless attacks but this one just makes me shake my head. Unbelievable.
