The U.S. has seen a plague of ransomware over
the past 18 months or so, with major cities from
Baltimore to Atlanta hit and local governments
and schools hit especially hard.
In September, a ransomware attack hobbled all
250 U.S. facilities of the hospital chain Universal
Health Services, forcing doctors and nurses to
rely on paper and pencil for record-keeping and
slowing lab work. Employees described chaotic
conditions impeding patient care, including
mounting emergency room waits and the failure
of wireless vital-signs monitoring equipment.
Also in September, the first known fatality
related to ransomware occurred in Duesseldorf,
Germany, when an IT system failure forced a
critically ill patient to be routed to a hospital in
another city.
Holden said he alerted federal law enforcement
Friday after monitoring infection attempts at
a number of hospitals, some of which may
have beaten back infections. The FBI did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
He said the group was demanding ransoms well
above $10 million per target and that criminals
involved on the dark web were discussing plans
to try to infect more than 400 hospitals, clinics
and other medical facilities.
“One of the comments from the bad guys is
that they are expecting to cause panic and, no,
they are not hitting election systems,” Holden
said. “They are hitting where it hurts even more
and they know it.” U.S. officials have repeatedly
expressed concern about major ransomware
attacks affecting the presidential election, even
if the criminals are motivated chiefly by profit.