The recent WannaCry ransomware attack which hit international healthcare facilities has had some impact on the US healthcare systems and certain medical devices, according to the Department of Health & Human Services.
The HHS organized a conference call on Monday with US health organizations to address the issue and said that certain medical devices had become infected with the malware, according to a Fox Business report.
The agency did not, however, identify which devices had been affected, and referred questions to the Dept. of Homeland Security, according to the report.
In an interview on Sunday, an official from Homeland Security said that certain US healthcare companies reported suspected or confirmed attacks involving the malware program, but would not reveal which centers were affected, according to the report. The ransomware program was not reported to have disrupted operations, and mostly affected administrative duties.
A number of British and international hospitals and healthcare facilities were hit by the ransomware cyber attack last Friday, with technology experts working through the night to patch computer systems to correct the issue, according to Security Minister Ben Wallace.
The British government said 48 of the 248 health service trusts in the U.K. were impacted by Friday’s attack. Hospitals were forced to turn away patients and cancel appointments.
Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab dubbed the attack “WannaCry,” and said that files in the attack are encrypted with the extension “.WCRY” added to the file names. The group said it recorded more than 45,000 attacks from the ransomware program from 74 countries around the world.
The malware requests $600 USD in Bitcoin to decrypt the user’s files, according to Kaspersky, which added that the amount requested could be increasing. The malware tool was designed to address multiple countries and is translated into a number of different languages, the group added.
