Chris Walcutt, the CSO at DirectDefense talks about the rapidly changing threat landscape that critical infrastructure owners and operators inhabit, and how savvy firms are managing OT cyber risks.
The post Spotlight Podcast: OT Is Under Attack. Now What? appeared first on The Security Ledger with Paul F. Roberts.
– APT, Ransomware, Cyber Attack
Three and a half years ago, the Springhill Medical Center in Mobile, Alabama, became the target of Russian-based cybercriminals known as the Ryuk gang and Wizard Spider. The hackers locked up all the hospital’s computers, medical records and equipment when Springhill refused to pay a ransom.
It’s one example out of hundreds in the past three years of cyber hackers attacking unsuspecting hospitals and medical centers knowing that if those hospitals’ systems are down, lives can be lost.
“These criminal groups have been deploying ransomware against these hospitals, trying to lock up data, in some cases locking up medical devices in order to cause life-threatening conditions that then would, in their view, get these organizations to be much more likely to pay a quick ransom and have them make a buck,” Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of Silverado Policy Accelerator explains.
“It’s been really an epidemic over the last three years with a range of both rural hospitals, small organizations and major hospital networks being attacked on a continuous basis by these groups and, in some cases, having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom.”
Now, the nation’s top cyber defenders plan to make protecting hospitals and schools their priority in the new year.
