eHealth Sask Sees Downtime Costs Escalate After Ransomware Attack

Exploit: Ransomware
Company: eHealth
Industry: Medical Services
Source: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ehealth-hit-ransomware-attack-personal-175304050.html

A ransomware attack has left eHealth Saskatchewan with a major loss in business productivity leaving some 31 cancer patients to reschedule their treatment. Although the company is stating that no patient data has been stolen, the encrypted network has left operations at a stand still. Employees are without access to the system as eHealth has chosen not to negotiate with the hackers stating, “We’re not interested in negotiating with them in any way at this point.” For eHealth, remediation has begun with a system restore, a choice that will bear costs and an undetermined amount of downtime. Company officials have notified the RCMP of the event and are now working with Microsoft and Cisco Systems to investigate the details and contain the attack from spreading further throughout the network.

As many cyber experts suggest, paying the ransom is not advisable as the decryption key is not always guaranteed. Payment can also increase the likelihood of more attacks to hit the same business. Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Planning and proper backups for cases such as eHealth can help shorten downtime and mitigate costs but in most cases the reputational damage to the company itself and, in the Medical Industry, time without patient care can be far more crucial. Prevention and company-wide awareness is the primary way in which we can hope to combat ransomware.

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