The World Health Organization has seen an influx of unsuccessful hacking attempts, the agency’s information security chief told The Wall Street Journal.
Along with managing the coronavirus pandemic, WHO has worked to fight off multiple ransomware attempts, security chief Flavio Aggio said. But the organization’s protection software has stopped the hackers from infecting its network.
Before the hacking attempts, the WHO had been dealing with an increase in scams designed to spread misinformation about COVID-19. There has been an uptick in phishing schemes targeting hospitals amid the pandemic, the WHO said.
COVID-19 testing firm Hammersmith Medicines Research was one healthcare hacking target. Maze ransomware users seized records from the U.K. clinical testing organization and posted hundreds of the documents containing contain personal health information online.