Algemeen Medisch Laboratorium bvba, (AML) in the Antwerp
district of Hoboken was attacked by hackers; the laboratory manages
about 3,000 Covid-19 tests daily, which is about 5% of the nation's
total. The cyberattacks amid the outbreak of Coronavirus have
rampantly increased over the past year and this attack was nothing
new but yet another addition to the newly surfaced theme of malware
and ransomware attacks in the context of 'COVID-19'.
Hackers attacked the laboratory website by installing ransomware
into it, it brought the website to a standstill. As we have seen in
the past as well in the case of ransomware attacks - the hackers
are demanding a ransom before releasing the website from
confinement.
ICT manager Maarten Vanheusden has said, “that after detailed
analysis by our security teams, it was decided to disengage the
network as a safety measure and by this way we can see what exactly
is infected”. He also said by this time there is no information of
data being stolen and that they are taking all the precautionary
measures. Furthermore, the origins of the attack remain unknown as
of now. The traces linked back the hackers to China, Russia, and
Iran.
AML is the largest private lab in the country which is dealing with
the COVID-19 problem. There is no clarity regarding the purpose of
the attack, speculations could not exactly suggest that whether the
hackers attacked the laboratory merely for ransom or they have
other plans as well as data theft. The case is being handled by the
federal Computer Crimes Unit after the lab reported the attack to
the Antwerp prosecutor`s office.
This is the second time in December that hackers have attacked
the sites related to the Covid-19 pandemic. European Medicines
Agency (EMA) was targeted in a cyber-attack; EMA is responsible for
assessing and approving vaccines for the European Union. German
biotech firm BioNTech said, “that the agency was attacked and some
documents which were related to the regulatory submission for
Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine had been unlawfully
accessed".
Hackers are targeting many healthcare and medical organizations especially during this Covid-19 outbreak for demanding ransom as well as to obtain the classified information related to the vaccines.
Read more https://www.ehackingnews.com/2021/01/hackers-demand-ransom-after-major-cyber.html