On Jan. 31, 'Killnet,' a Russian-based hacking group claimed to have taken down multiple hospital and health system websites across the U.S., and has allegedly obtained data from a number of hospitals in January, SC Media reported Jan. 31.
According to the report, on Jan. 28, the group allegedly posted global health and personal information belonging to global health organizations on its Killnet list.
Although the severity of the attacks were minimal and only disrupted public facing websites, Killnet uses DDoS campaigns, which can cause website outages that can last for several hours or days, according to the HHS.
John Riggi, the American Hospital Association’s national advisor for cybersecurity and risk, told SC Media that "as of today, we understand that some of the named entities were, in fact, targeted by DDoS attacks."
Some of these entities affected by the attack include Stanford (Calif.) Health Care, Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health, and more.
With this, healthcare entities are being advised to have adequate DDoS protection for their web hosting.