In 2017, for the first time, UK public health hospitals were subjected to simultaneous attacks by digital criminals. 17 hospitals fell victim to ransomware, or malicious code. This attack prevents use of the infected computer or system. The cyber criminal then takes full control of the system by becoming the administrator super user, which is usually the first thing they do is change or delete the passwords of all other users. The result is that the infected company’s technology is virtually hijacked. This year, between May and August, services in the UK fell victim to this attack again, in which the executors sought multi-million dollar bounties that they always asked to be paid in cryptocurrency.

The International Red Cross fell victim to a cyber attack in January that left half a million people unable to access its services. 2 million users in the United States were affected by the attack on Shields Health Care Group. Criminals steal sensitive patient information such as social security numbers, billing addresses, and medical records. Three months ago in France, Russians from the Lockbit 3.0 group attacked the Corbeil-Essonnes hospital. They demanded a ransom of US $ 10 million which must be transferred via the dark web.

The Consorci Sanitari Integral de Barcelona in Spain, also received a violent digital attack last October, whose kidnapping was carried out by the self-styled RansomExx which leaked 52 Gigabytes of sensitive data. The economic value of this rescue is not disclosed but it is estimated that we are talking about exorbitant figures, which exceed the entity’s financial statements. According to specialized digital security firm Kaspersky, 2022 is the year of ransomware. Only in Europe the volume of threats increased by 63%. We are talking about businesses that can exceed US$1.1 trillion per year.

In Latin America, two systems have been significantly affected, namely Chile and Colombia. In our country, the Sanitas organization has become a victim, unable to regain full control over its system, which was affected since November. EPS Sanitas has 5.5 million users, with difficulty scheduling appointments, procedures and, in sensitive cases, care of patients with critical illnesses they cannot afford to put off. This means that today there are people who are on the verge of death. Sanitas tries to solve the problem as quickly as possible by creating a “new” system in real time that it hopes will work.

The painful thing is that this harmful international practice seems to have no end. In fact, analysts agree that it will likely continue to grow geometrically, as criminals have found it easy and “inexpensive” to bribe or “buy” login access to corporate systems, via just a single user with the required password. Other entities in the sector work preventively knowing that they are unlikely to carry out attacks like Sanitas did. Meanwhile the Ministry of Health, thank you.