Powell has breast cancer, which has not yet spread to its lymph nodes. Friday, it is currently planned for surgery, but it is not yet sure if it will happen as planned, because its doctors no longer have access to its medical records, including the tests which it has undergone in preparation for this operation.
“I need this surgery because I have to do before it spreads,” said Powell.
Powell does not get a lot of answers, she said, adding that his care team probably does not have the answers themselves while this failure of technology continues.
While Powell is waiting to find out whether or not she will undergo surgery, she hopes that she is still able to do her procedure in Kettering Health.
“I love my team in Kettering (health),” said Powell. “It is not Kettering’s fault. It is not the fault. It is only the world in which we live.”
Work on restoration of access
Pirates seem to threaten to destroy data and publicly publish sensitive data on the Dark Web if hospital officials do not contact and do not negotiate within 72 hours, according to information shared with the Dayton Daily News by an anonymous source.
“The Kettering Health teams operate with diligence 24 hours a day to restore our systems the day after unauthorized access which caused a system of technology on a system scale,” said Kettering Health in a Updated Declaration on Wednesday evening.
“Currently, procedures are assessed on a case -by -case basis based on collaborative decision -making between care teams, security as our highest priority,” said Kettering Health.
If the care teams have patient contact details, they will contact patients by phone about reproduction procedures, the hospital system said.
“Although we recognize this process has not been transparent, and we ask for everyone’s patience while we continue to solve this problem,” said Kettering Health.
Risk health care organizations
Kettering Health has not confirmed if the cyber attack is a ransomware incident, but this media has spoken to an expert who speculates that this has the characteristics of such an attack.
“If we are dealing with ransomware, one of the reasons why the health sector notes an increase in these types of attacks is that when you are engaged in extortion, you want to force the other side to give you money, you want them to feel as much emergency as possible,” said Richard Harknett, director of the Center for Cyber Strategy and Policy at the University of Cincinnati.
The ransomware gangs do not want to risk identifying if the interaction is too prolonged, he said, but there is more at stake with regard to people’s health care.
“The involvement is that people’s life could be at stake if you could really get a fundamental disruption of medical systems,” said Harknett.
This exerts a lot of pressure on the organization to pay and pay quickly, he said.
Cyber extortion
Since the Kettering Health cyber attack is known and causes continuous failure, it is likely that the possible authors are after the financial gain in Kettering’s health itself.
“When we have systems that lock like that, it is to force, to remove something from the organization,” said Harknett. “The main objective of most of these players is to obtain money (generally paid) in Bitcoin, a type of digital currency.”
Ransomware attacks operate by people infiltrating the victim’s system and locking the system with their own encryption so that the victim’s computers are unable to access the information he is supposed to access, he said.
“They have a key, a code, which they can give you that will unlock the malware they use to lock your system,” said Harknett. “This is what is happening in the first level of extortion. They say:” You are here, we have locked your system, we pay it, or you do not recover your system. “”
This can be expensive to manage for the organization, and malware can be almost impossible for the victim to move, he said.
“Not your subsoil hooded pirates”
Online speculation wondered whether or not the author would have a reason not to go ahead and sell stolen data on the Dark web, even after obtaining his payment as a ransom from the victim.
The gangs that perpetuate these crimes are sophisticated organizations, said Harknett, and they have an incentive to be considered trusted thieves.
“These are not your hooded hackers in the basement,” said Harknett.
These organizations, in most cases, have technical teams that operate, a separate negotiation team to put pressure on the victim, then a financial team that will allow the ransom, said Harknett.
“They are very public on this subject. They have a reputation which they want to maintain as being the largest and the most mean,” said Harknett.
If an organization like this were to take the ransom then sell the data anyway, there is less reason for their future victims to pay the ransom.
“They have data leak sites attributing to attacks. I know that, last night, no one posted on known data leak sites. They are generally waiting to conclude the attack,” said Harknett.
The idea is that they can show future victims that they will follow what they said that they would do as proof that they would unclog the victim’s computer system.
“You can trust us to be honorable thieves is the type of reputation building in which they are committed,” said Harknett.
Concerns about identity theft
There is not much to do for the public at this stage, but the people who are concerned about the theft of their information can monitor their credit cards if they are concerned about identity theft.
Beware of very small and unknown purchases that are like $ 2 or $ 3 purchases. These can be tests to see if the credit card will be accepted before the attacker tries a greater purchase.
“We understand the concerns of our patients for their confidentiality and information security. We have no evidence that personal mobile phone applications, such as Mychart, or the information compromised there,” said Kettering Health.
In addition, Kettering Health will never contact staff or patients via social media, he said.
Kettering Health will also share updates to this cyber attack at Ketteringhealth.org/System-wide- Technology-Outage.
Region adapting to challenges
The first health has refused to comment on the impact of the Kettering Health technology failure could have on its operations or if patients are referred to their hospitals.
Mercy Health has had a slight increase in patient volumes in its emergency service and some surgical cases, but its operations are not affected elsewhere, the organization said.
Member hospitals of the Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association continue to work together to increase allocation and capacity in not impacted active care establishments to ensure that the region’s health system can meet the needs of the community, the association announced on Wednesday.
The emergency medical services of local jurisdictions also receive updates concerning the transport of patients.
“GDAHA works in close collaboration with Kettering Health and local jurisdictions to provide timely updates via the EMS platform across the state level and ensure that EMS teams have access to the most up-to-date and up-to-date information for patient transport decisions,” said the association.
Kettering Health has 14 medical centers in the region and more than 120 ambulatory locations in western Ohio, as well as the Kettering doctors network, which includes more than 700 suppliers certified on the board of directors.