Patient Dies After Hackers Hit ‘Wrong’ Hospital in Germany

University Hospital Düsseldorf (UKD) in Germany suffered a cyberattack. Through an unpatched vulnerability, hackers penetrated the hospital’s network with ransomware, forcing planned and outpatient treatments and emergency care to have to occur elsewhere. A patient died after being forced to go to another hospital.

The ransom notes left on the hospital's encrypted servers were incorrectly addressed to Heinrich Heine University, rather than the hospital itself. After the police contacted the threat actors and explained that they encrypted a hospital, the ransomware operators withdrew the ransom demand and provided a decryption key.

Estimated Cost

A patient died

Threat Source

Impacts

IT