Hancock Health pays $47,000 ransom to unlock patient data

Hancock Health, based in Greenfield, Indiana, paid hackers $47,000 in bitcoin to unlock its network after falling victim to a ransomware attack. The hackers compromised a third-party vendor’s account and launched SamSam ransomware, which infected a number of the hospital’s IT systems. The hospital was given just seven days to pay the ransom, and although it could have recovered the affected files from backups, it would have taken a long time and cost more. The hospital’s critical systems were restored on Monday, and patient data was not transferred outside of the network.