UPDATED 22:54 EDT / JULY 19 2018

INFRA

Lab testing firm LabCorp struck by SamSam ransomware attack

Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings, better known as LabCorp, is the latest victim of ransomware as the company disclosed that it had detected “suspicious activity” on its information technology network over the weekend.

The company, claimed by Forbes to be the biggest blood testing firm in the U.S. with dozens of locations, said in an 8-K filing lodged Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had taken “certain systems offline as part of its comprehensive response to contain the activity.”

“This temporarily affected test processing and customer access to test results on or over the weekend,” the statement says. “Work has been ongoing to restore full system functionality as quickly as possible, testing operations have substantially resumed today and we anticipate that additional systems and functions will be restored through the next several days.”

The company added that “there is no evidence of unauthorized transfer or misuse of data.” As usual in these cases, it said it has “notified the relevant authorities” and will “cooperate in any investigation.”

While not providing further details as to the form of the attack, the Wall Street Journal reported that the attack involved the use of SamSam ransomware, the same ransomware that crippled the City of Atlanta in March. Like other forms of ransomware, it encrypts files on a given computer and demands that the victim pays a ransom in return for a key to decrypt the files.

Fred Kneip, chief executive officer of CyberGRX Inc. told SiliconANGLE that because LabCorp serves thousands of hospitals, clinics and healthcare organizations, a ransomware attack that spreads across its digital ecosystem could have an “enormous impact” on healthcare providers across the globe.

“Healthcare providers need to understand the level of risk introduced by each member of their dynamic portfolio of third-party providers because it only takes one vulnerability for attackers to get in,” Kneip said. “It’s critical that healthcare organizations have the ability to assess third-party risk in real time, track emerging exposures and remediate issues like this LabCorp attack as they occur.”

Image: Pixabay

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