Computer systems for Universal Health Services, which has more than 400 locations, primarily in the U.S., began to fail over the weekend, and some hospitals have had to resort to filing patient information with pen and paper, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.
Universal Health Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but posted a statement to its website that its company-wide network is currently offline, due to an IT security issue. One person familiar with the companys response efforts who was not authorized to speak to the press said that the attack looks and smells like ransomware.
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that spreads across computer networks, encrypting files and demanding payment for a key to decrypt them.
Hackers seeking to deploy ransomware often wait until the weekend, when a company is likely to not have as many technical staff members present.
Two Universal Health Services nurses, who requested to not be named because they werent authorized by the company to speak with the media, said that the attack began over the weekend and had left medical staff to work with pen and paper.
One of the nurses, who works in a facility in North Dakota, said that computers slowed and then eventually simply would not turn on in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Another registered nurse at a facility in Arizona who worked this weekend said the computer just started shutting down on its own.
Kenneth White, a computer security engineer with more than a decade of experience working with hospital networks, said that the delays caused by ransomware attacks can have dire consequences for patients.
Original article