Blood Donations Cancelled As Hackers Go For The Jugular In New York

It comes as no surprise, sadly, that cybercriminals will attack anyone and any organization as long as there its a profit in it for them, regardless of the impact on human life. Recent hack attacks compromising the medical records of a million patients, targeting a 70-year-old woman, and even airlines prove that. However, if you want proof of just how low these scumbags will go, and I use that word advisedly, ransomware attackers have now struck a major New York blood center supplying blood to more than 200 U.S. hospitals, disrupting donations. Here’s what you need to know.

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The New York Blood Center Ransomware Attack

The New York Blood Center has been serving the community since 1964, providing blood and related products to hospitals and patients. The non-profit blood center, one of the biggest in the U.S., is dedicated to helping patients and advancing global public health, according to a mission statement. Not that this makes any difference to cybercriminals, of course. New York Blood Center Enterprises has confirmed that ransomware attackers hit IT systems on Jan. 26, resulting in some systems being taken offline. “At this time,” a Jan. 29 statement said, “we do not have a specific timetable for system restoration. We are working diligently with third-party experts to restore our systems as quickly and safely as possible.”

While blood donations are still being accepted, processing times have been impacted, and the New York Blood Center conceded that it has had to cancel blood donor appointments as a result of the attack. “Donation center activities and blood drives may need to be rescheduled,” a spokesperson said, “if we determine any donation appointments need to be rescheduled, we will let our donors know as quickly as possible.”

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Security Experts Respond To The New York Blood Center Ransomware Attack

Describing the ransomware attack against the New York Blood Center as being a devastating blow to the healthcare sector, Dr. Darren Williams, CEO at BlackFog, said that “with lives depending on timely blood transfusions, disruptions like this put real people at risk, making ransomware attacks on healthcare providers even more insidious.”

Roei Sherman, the field chief technology office at threat detection and response experts Mitiga, said that thew attack should serve “as a wake-up call for organizations across sectors, particularly those in critical services such as healthcare. As one of the world’s largest independent blood collection and distribution organizations, this incident undermines not just their operational capacity but potentially jeopardizes public health.”

“Until healthcare organizations ramp up their defenses with stronger anti-data exfiltration measures,” Williams concluded, “I expect we’ll continue to see cybercriminals exploiting this vital sector, putting both data and lives in jeopardy.”

With ransomware attacks now going for blood, we can only hope that every healthcare organization is listening.

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