Emsisoft and Coverware have announced on a blog post that they will offer free help to critical care hospitals and other healthcare providers that are on the front lines of COVID-19 and have been impacted by ransomware.
“As hospitals around the world struggle to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, ransomware presents a serious risk to their ability to provide urgent care are to the critically ill. In 2019, at least 764 healthcare providers were impacted by ransomware. Without a global pandemic, a ransomware attack on a critical care facility can cause grave danger to patients. With COVID-19, a ransomware attack on an overwhelmed hospital could tip the balance and result in a significant loss of life.”
The services offered will include:
- Technical analysis of the ransomware.
- Development of a decryption tool whenever possible.
- As a last resort ransom negotiation, transaction handling and recovery assistance, including replacement of the decryption tool supplied by the criminals with a custom tool that will recover data faster and with less chance of data loss.
Unfortunately, some online threat groups and ransomware operators see this as an optimal time to launch attacks on these organizations when they are at their most vulnerable.
