Chicago-based Lurie Children's Hospital has been demanded by the Rhysida ransomware-as-a-service operation to provide more than $3.4 million worth of bitcoin as ransom to prevent the sale of data stolen from a cyberattack earlier this month, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
Such an attack has prompted Lurie Children's, which is among the largest pediatric healthcare providers across the Midwest, to take down its entire network and leverage manual processes that have led to prolonged waiting times as it continues working on recovering impacted systems, including its MyChart electronic records system. Lurie Children's has also urged the parents of their patients to bring their printed insurance cards, as well as their children's medications, either in list form or medication bottles, to ease operations amid the ongoing disruptions. Meanwhile, Rhysida's attack against Lurie Children's comes months after the U.S. healthcare sector was warned by the Department of Health and Human Services regarding the threat posed by the ransomware gang.
