COVID-19 Testing Center in Czech Republic Hit By Cyberattack

The Brno University Hospital in the city of Brno, Czech Republic, has been hit by a cyberattack during a COVID-19 outbreak that is picking up steam in the small central European country. Hospital officials have not disclosed the nature of the security failure; however, the attack was viewed as terrible enough to postpone urgent operative participation, and re-route new acute patients to nearby St. Anne’s University Hospital, local media reported.

This tool place at a time when there are more than 140 confirmed infections in the country and around 4,800 people in quarantine. The government has announced a state of emergency and imposed strict regulation on crossing the border. Short information has been revealed about the incident, that happened on Friday morning, around 2 a.m. local time. Its nature remains unknown but it would not be a surprise if it were a ransomware attack. At the time of writing, the hospital’s website was down.

Due to the strike, the results for COVID-19 tests in the past couple of days, estimated to dozens, have been put on hold. It typically takes a day to get the outcome. According to the Czech News Agency (ČTK), the director of the hospital, Jaroslav Štěrba, said reporters that PC devices started “falling gradually” and “had to be shut down.” Members of the staff got instructions not to turn on the computers.

Some crypto-virus developers, like Maze, intentionally avoid targeting critical services. They told in an interview that they “don’t attack hospitals, cancer centers, maternity hospitals and other socially vital objects.” Other ransomware operators, though, have no problem hitting healthcare units. At the beginning of 2018, SamSam striked at least two hospitals in the U.S. Ryuk also has no regret attacking hospitals. Last year, DCH hospitals in Alabama paid what the cybercriminals demanded for the decryption key that unlocked the medical data.