Logo

NBC News

Medical Center Pays Ransom to Hackers to Restore Access to Its Computers — for a Simple Reason

Feb 18, 2016  •  Post A Comment

After hackers infiltrated and disabled the computer network of a Los Angeles hospital, the hospital paid a ransom of 40 bitcoins — valued at almost $17,000 — to regain access to the system.

Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center CEO Allen Stefanek said in a statement Wednesday that paying the ransom was the most efficient way to solve the problem, NBC News reports. Said Stefanek: “The quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions was to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key. In the best interest of restoring normal operations, we did this.”

The infiltration apparently began Feb. 5. “The FBI is investigating the attack, often called ‘ransomware,’ where hackers encrypt a computer network’s data to hold it ‘hostage,’ providing a digital decryption key to unlock it for a price,” the story reports.

Your Comment

Email (will not be published)