Page 26 - hoh

A12 TECHNOLOGY
Saturday 5 december 2020

As hospitals cope with a COVID-19 surge, cyber threats loom

By MARION RENAULT and been brought back online,
WILSON RING but others were replaced
Associated Press entirely.
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — By Col. Christopher Evans
late morning on Oct. 28, said it’s the first time the
staff at the University of Ver- unit, which was founded
mont Medical Center no- about 20 years ago, has
ticed the hospital’s phone been called upon to per-
system wasn’t working. form what the guard calls
Then the internet went “a real-world” mission. “We
down, and the Burlington- have been training for this
based center’s technical day for a very long time,”
infrastructure with it. Em- he said.
ployees lost access to da- It could be several more
tabases, digital health re- weeks before all the re-
cords, scheduling systems lated damage is repaired
and other online tools they and the systems are oper-
rely on for patient care. ating normally again, Go-
Administrators scrambled In this photo provided by the University of Vermont Health Network, IT staff at the University of beille said.
to keep the hospital oper- Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, Vt., continue work to scan thousands of the hospital’s “I don’t want to get peo-
ational — cancelling non- computer systems for malware on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020, after the Oct. 28 cyberattack forced a ples’ hopes up and be
shut down of the hospital’s electronic medical records system and other key systems.
urgent appointments, re- Associated Press wrong,” he said. “Our folks
verting to pen-and-paper have been working 24/7.
record keeping and rerout- cabling. ple out into patient care lieve any patient suffered They are getting closer and
ing some critical care pa- A few weeks earlier, in Ger- when a center’s capac- immediate harm, or that closer every day.”
tients to nearby hospitals. many, a woman’s death ity is stretched thin, said any personal patient infor- It will be a scramble for oth-
In its main laboratory, which became the first fatality Vanderbilt University’s Eric mation was compromised. er health care providers to
runs about 8,000 tests a believed to result from a Johnson, who studies the But more than a month protect themselves against
day, employees printed or ransomware attack. Earlier health impacts of cyberat- later, the hospital is still re- the growing threat of cy-
hand-wrote results and car- in October, facilities in Or- tacks. covering. berattacks if they haven’t
ried them across facilities egon, New York, Michigan, “November has been a Some employees were already, said data security
to specialists. Outdated, Wisconsin and California month of escalating de- furloughed for weeks until expert Larry Ponemon.
internet-free technologies also fell prey to suspect- mands on hospitals,” he they could return to their “It’s not like hospital sys-
experienced a revival. ed ransomware attacks. said. “There’s no room for regular duties. tems need to do some-
“We went around and got Ransomware is also partly error. From a hacker’s per- Oncologists could not ac- thing new,” he said. “They
every fax machine that we to blame for some of the spective, it’s perfect.” cess older patient scans just need to do what they
could,” said UVM Medical nearly 700 private health A ‘CALL TO ARMS’ FOR which could help them, for should be doing anyway.”
Center Chief Operating Of- information breaches, af- HOSPITALS example, compare tumor Current industry reports
ficer Al Gobeille. fecting about 46.6 million The day after the Oct. 28 size over time. indicate health systems
The Vermont hospital had people and currently being cyberattack, 53-year-old And, until recently, emer- spend only 4% to 7% of their
fallen prey to a cyberat- investigated by the federal Joel Bedard, of Jericho, ar- gency department clini- IT budget on cybersecurity,
tack, becoming one of the government. In the hands rived for a scheduled ap- cians could take X-rays of whereas other industries
most recent and visible ex- of a criminal, a single pa- pointment at the Burlington broken bones but couldn’t like banking or insurance
amples of a wave of digital tient record — rich with hospital. electronically send the im- spend three times as much.
assaults taking U.S. health details about a person’s He was able to get in, he ages to radiologists at other Research by Ponemon’s
care providers hostage as finances, insurance and said, because his fluid- sites in the health network. consulting firm shows only
COVID-19 cases surge na- medical history — can sell draining treatment is not “We didn’t even have in- about 15% of health care
tionwide. for upward of $1,000 on the high-tech, and is something ternet,” said Dr. Kristen DeS- organizations have adopt-
The same day as UVM’s at- black market, experts say. he’s gotten regularly as he tigter, chair of UVM Medi- ed the technology, training
tack, the FBI and two fed- Over the course of 2020, waits for a liver transplant. cal Center’s radiology de- and procedures necessary
eral agencies warned cy- many hospitals postponed “I got through, they took partment. to manage and thwart the
bercriminals were ramping technology upgrades or care of me, but man, ev- The tech outage also de- stream of cyberattacks
up efforts to steal data and cybersecurity training that erything is down,” Bedard layed the reporting of they face on a regular ba-
disrupt services across the would help protect them said. He said he saw no about 50 coronavirus test sis.
health care sector. from the newest wave of other patients that day. results to the state, prompt- “The rest are out there fly-
By targeting providers with attacks, said health care Much of the medical staff ing the hospital to revert to ing with their head down.
attacks that scramble and security consultant Nick idled, doing crossword a fax system for reporting That number is unaccept-
lock up data until victims Culbertson. puzzles and explaining they results until its information able,” Ponemon said. “It’s
pay a ransom, hackers can “The amount of chaos were forced to document technology problems are a pitiful rate.”
demand thousands or mil- that’s just coming to a everything by hand. fixed, UVM Medical Center And it’s part of why cy-
lions of dollars and wreak head here is a real threat,” “All the students and interns President Dr. Stephen Lef- bercriminals have focused
havoc until they’re paid. he said. are, like, ‘How did this work fler said Thursday. their attention on health
In September, for exam- With COVID-19 infections back in the day?’” he said. Soldiers with the state’s care organizations — es-
ple, a ransomware attack and hospitalizations climb- Since the attack, the Burl- National Guard cyber unit pecially now, as hospitals
paralyzed a chain of more ing nationwide, experts say ington-based hospital net- have helped hospital IT across the country are
than 250 U.S. hospitals and health care providers are work has referred all ques- workers scour the program- coping with a surge of CO-
clinics. The resulting out- dangerously vulnerable tions about its technical ming code in hundreds of VID-19 patients, he said.
ages delayed emergency to attacks on their ability details to the FBI, which has computers and other de- “We’re seeing true clinical
room care and forced staff to function efficiently and refused to release any ad- vices, line-by-line, to wipe impact,” said health care
to restore critical heart rate, manage limited resources. ditional information, citing any remaining malicious cybersecurity consultant
blood pressure and oxygen Even a small technical an ongoing criminal inves- code that could re-infect Dan L. Dodson. “This is a
level monitors with ethernet disruption can quickly rip- tigation. Officials don’t be- the system. Many have call to arms.”q