The FBI warns of a record number of US hospital hacks that led to the death of a nine-month-old baby

America’s hospitals are under attack as a new report shows that public health has been hit harder than any other sector.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released its latest internet crime report, showing that nearly 1,200 organizations were affected by ransomware in 2023. Of those, 250 were submitted by medical groups – most from 16 sectors.

However, experts have warned that hospital attacks not only steal a patient’s information but also pose a serious threat to public safety. As a result of such cyber attacks, Americans were unable to obtain life-saving medications and in one case a nine-month-old baby lost her life.

Cybersecurity expert Steven McKeon told DailyMail.com that rickety infrastructures and outdated security systems have made it too easy for hackers to infect networks with ransomware, and said the situation will only get worse.

Experts from the Ponemon Institute, an independent research group that studies critical security issues, surveyed more than 600 healthcare facilities and found that death rates increased in a quarter of locations after a ransomware attack.

Although the FBI report shows that 2023 was an all-time high for hospital hacks, such attacks have been widespread for years — one in 2019 resulted in the death of a baby.

Springhill Medical Center in Alabama fell victim to a malicious ransomware attack that crippled the hospital’s internal network systems and public web page.

Teiranni Kidd reported in a lawsuit against the Alabama medical center that she was unaware an ongoing ransomware attack was taking place when she arrived at the hospital to deliver her baby.

She was also unaware that the computers on every floor had been disabled for the past eight days due to the attack.

The computers are needed to provide vital information about the baby’s heartbeat during delivery, but without the technology, staff were unaware the umbilical cord was around Kidd’s daughter’s neck.

Nicko Silar was born with the cord still wrapped around her neck, cutting off her blood and oxygen supply and causing severe brain damage.

Nicko died nine months later.

Kidd reportedly reached an undisclosed settlement with Springhill Medical Center in April of this year, but her lawyers claim the hospital is now refusing to pay. Fox10 reported.

In February, Change Healthcare – a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group – suffered a major cyberattack that disrupted insurance co-payment systems, effectively denying people access to essential medicines.

Donna Hamlet, 73, is a breast cancer patient who takes a drug called IBRANCE, which costs $16,000 out of pocket, but when the cyberattack hit, she had to look for a way to get her hands on the drug.

Without the drug, “the cancer would fill my body, and I think I would die,” Hamlet said NBC News.

John Paul Miller was also struck when he tried to use his discount card to pick up insulin needed to treat his type 2 diabetes and congestive heart failure at a pharmacy in South Dakota.

He was told the card could not be processed and he would have to pay hundreds of dollars to cover the costs.

“If you have diabetes, whether it’s type 1 or type 2, without insulin they die,” his wife Ronda Miller told the newspaper.

In another attack, Ascension, a St. Louis-based nonprofit network covering 140 hospitals in 19 states, was hit last month when hackers disrupted healthcare facilities’ access to electronic records and phone systems used to order tests, procedures and medications . .

The attack forced affected hospitals to divert ambulances to other locations as they tried to get their systems up and running.

In 2022, Jes Kraus was denied radiation indefinitely when he showed up for his appointment at the University of Vermont Medical Center.

He went to the center daily for aggressive radiation and chemotherapy to treat his stage three colorectal cancer, which he had been battling for three years.

“The radiation was stopped for a week,” said Kara Kraus, Jes’ wife ABC news at the time.

‘We were afraid. We weren’t sure if this would affect the outcome. Again, would the tumor start growing again within that week? What was going to happen?’ she said.

Although cyber attacks are on the rise and affecting more and more people in the US and around the world, the problem has been around for years.

Large payouts encourage hackers to launch more attacks on health insurers and hospitals, as they will see this as a lucrative opportunity.

“These cyber attacks on our hospital infrastructure here and abroad only highlight the very urgent need for improved cybersecurity in healthcare overall,” said McKeon, cybersecurity expert and founder of MacguyverTech.

“With 1 in 3 Americans affected by data breaches, modernizing these systems and improving cybersecurity measures are essential to protecting patient data and ensuring security and continuity of care,” he said.

This was stated by a law firm from Washington DC Newsweek that the number of people filing lawsuits over healthcare data breaches has “exploded” over the past five years and that the company had more than 100 pending class action lawsuits as of June 7.

Cyberattacks have previously been linked to threats to patient privacy and medical information, but even more concerning is the potential harm to patients, Josh Corman, a leading cybersecurity and healthcare expert, told ABC.

A cyber attack could cripple all their systems, rendering access to medicines useless,” McKeon told DailyMail.com.

‘It may happen that someone gains access to systems or uses them to look up medication information.’

The FBI reported that healthcare and public health suffered a total of 249 cyber attacks in the past year and McKeon said the solution is to fix outdated technology and “enhance cybersecurity measures” that are “essential in protecting patient data and ensuring the safety and continuity of care.’