The American Hospital Association is warning U.S. hospitals of potential cyberattacks due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reports Healthcare Finance.
“The AHA is closely monitoring the potential for increased cyber risks to the U.S. health system stemming from the ongoing military operations in the Russia/Ukraine region,” the organization said.
Leading up to Russia’s invasion, threat actors deployed destructive malware against organizations in Ukraine to destroy computer systems and render them inoperable, the AHA said by statement on Saturday. These included malware known as WhisperGate and HermeticWiper, being used to target Windows devices and organizations in Ukraine.
“This has experts worried that U.S. hospitals and health systems could wind up being significantly affected as collateral damage, accidentally or even by design,” the AHA said.
One scenario: a third-party service provider with connections to Ukraine is an inadvertent conduit of malware or other cyber mischief into stateside healthcare systems. It also is possible that Russia could choose to ratchet up its longstanding cyber warfare against the U.S. in retribution for economic or other sanctions put in place this week, or give the green light to the multitude of ransomware gangs operating from Russia to target the west with impunity, the AHA said. Read more.
