Hackers Strike Romanian Hospital, Demand Bitcoin Ransom – Bitcoin News

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A hospital in Romania has been the target of a ransomware attack, with perpetrators seeking payment in cryptocurrency to decrypt its database. The hack prevents the medical institution from reporting to the country’s health insurance fund in order to receive the funding due.

Botoșani Hospital Blackmailed for Bitcoin, Romanian Media Says

Saint Gheorghe Recovery Hospital in Botoşani, northeastern Romania, became the target of hackers who locked its medical records from December and demanded to be paid in cryptocurrency to restore the file access.

After compromising the servers, they encrypted the data and left a message in English, demanding a ransom of 3 BTC (more than $50,000 at the current exchange rate), local newspaper Monitorul de Botoşani reported on Tuesday, quoted by the English portal Romania. Initiated.

The attack was well-planned, the publication notes. Neither the computer scientists of the Organized Crime and Terrorism Investigation Directorate nor the experts working for the Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender were able to decrypt the information.

Dr. Cătălin Dascălescu, general director of the hospital, told reporters that law enforcement had launched an investigation. “We hope to resume medical activity at normal capacity from Monday,” he added, without giving further details.

With its database hijacked, the hospital cannot file its reports for services performed in the last month of 2022 and receive corresponding payments.

However, officials from Romania’s National Health Insurance Fund said they were working on a solution that would allow medical staff to collect their salaries.

Investigators believe the hackers accessed the data remotely through the systems of a company responsible for maintaining computer hardware.

This is not the first such hacking incident in Romania in recent years. In the summer of 2019, four other hospitals were similarly targeted. Hospitals and healthcare providers in the United States have also been victims of ransomware attacks as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tags in this story Attack, Bitcoin, Crypto, Cryptocurrencies, Cryptocurrency, data, Database, decrypted, encrypted, Files, Hacking, Hackers, Hacking, hospital, hospitals, Medical Records, ransom, ransomware, Files , Romania, Romanian

Do you think the hacked Romanian hospital will be forced to pay the ransom to have its records decrypted? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.

Lubomir Tassev

Lubomir Tassev is a tech-savvy Eastern European journalist who loves Hitchens’ quote: Being a writer is who I am, rather than what I do. Besides crypto, blockchain and fintech, international politics and economics are two other sources of inspiration.

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