Maginot Lines
An old friend stopped by out of the blue this afternoon and we chatted. It’s been a tough year for socializing so I was grateful to see her. She gave birth at the peak of the lockdown restrictions in an isolated hospital ward and I wasn’t able to visit her and her husband in the traditional way. Zoom has its limitations. We’re just now coming out of the Covid era and it was good to see her in person again.
But there was a reason she was free today. Her employer’s computers all froze up and operations came to a complete halt. This is a healthcare company and suddenly all the patients’ records were inaccessible and the usual communications between people and equipment ceased. The day before was the conclusion of this non-profit operation’s annual fundraising campaign. No one in a position of authority would say what exactly happened, but it was pretty clearly a ransomware attack.
I mentioned this to my next door neighbor who works at a university medical lab doing clinical trials and he said his systems were similarly compromised three weeks ago. Again, no one at the top said anything specifically, but it's widely believed that the hospital paid the ransom. Evidently establishments have insurance against such things these days. That got me wondering how many places are experiencing these attacks that we just don't know about.
