A federal charge from a Pittsburgh grand jury accuses Russian Intelligence officers of conducting a malware attack against Heritage Valley Health System three years ago.
The Heritage Valley has medical facilities in McKees Rocks, Beaver, and Sewickley. According to the Justice Department, in June 2017, the hackers made the medical servers inaccessible, hindering the operations of two hospitals, some physician offices, and 18 satellite facilities.
It cost Heritage Valley USD 2 million to recover from the attack.
The allegation also said that they “knowingly and intentionally conspired…to deploy destructive malware and take other disruptive actions, for the strategic benefit of Russia.”
“Workstations were locked; patient lists, patient medical history information, physical examination files, and prior laboratory records were inaccessible,” reads the indictment. “The attack also caused Heritage Valley to lose access to its mission-critical computer systems (such as those relating to cardiology, nuclear medicine, radiology, and surgery) for approximately one week and other administrative computer systems for almost one month.”
The charges included conspiracy, wire fraud, damage to computers, aggravated identity theft, aiding, and abetting. These hackers were also charged for hacking entities associated with the 2018 Winter Olympics and perpetrated a phishing campaign against Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 campaign for president of France.
And yet, Heritage Valley did not respond to a request for comment.