Australian Medical Center Hijacked by Russian Ransomware

The Miami Family Medical Center in Queensland Australia has been victimize by Ransomware, which has forced them to take extreme measures in order to access important medical records.

According to ABC News, reporting locally, the medical center stores their records on a server, which was compromised with a variant of malware commonly known as Ransomware.

The attack, assumed to have originated via Russian cybercriminals, led to all of the medical records being encrypted. In order to access them again, the malware demanded a ransom of $4,000 AUD, a sum the medical center refuses to pay. The attack comes as a shock, one of the co-owners said, as they felt they had a good security system in place.

“We’ve got all the antivirus stuff in place – there’s no sign of a virus. They literally got in, hijacked the server and then ran their encryption software,” David Wood, co-owner of the Miami Family Medical Centre, told ABC News.

For now, they will create a new database for patient data, and seem to be considering the encrypted data a total loss. Luckily, they had backups to work from, and the information is available from other sources.

According to Queensland police, there have been 11 other Ransomware attacks this year.