Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago did not pay a ransom after it was targeted by hackers, ABC affiliate WLS reported Aug. 6.
In June, Lurie Children's notified patients that criminals had accessed its systems between Jan. 26 and 31.
As a result of the ransomware attack, 791,784 patients had their information breached. Some of the information accessed included patient medical conditions and Social Security numbers.
But Lurie Children's did not pay a ransom.
"Experts have advised that making a payment to cybercriminals does not guarantee the deletion or retrieval of data that has been taken," the hospital told the news outlet. "Once our investigation team identified an amount of data that was impacted by the cybercriminals, we worked closely with law enforcement to retrieve that data."
The FBI advises against paying ransom, as there is no assurance that data will be recovered. The agency also warns that paying ransom incentivizes criminals to target more victims. Instead, the FBI urges reporting such crimes directly to the agency, the report said.
In April, UnitedHealthcare Group said it paid hackers a ransom to protect stolen data after its subsidiary, Change Healthcare, was breached in February.