A hacker in front of his screen.

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The US federal authorities on Wednesday alerted hospitals to an upsurge in cyber attacks against this type of establishment in the country.

Faced with the increase in ransomware introduced by hackers into hospital computer systems, the FBI has asked directors to prepare, reports

Reuters

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No less than a dozen ransomware attacks launched by hackers from Eastern Europe have recently targeted hospitals in the United States.

Hackings targeting health facilities in New York, Oregon and California were made public this week.

Cybercrime specialists attribute these actions to the Wizard Spider group, also known as UNC 1878.

"A coordinated attack"

In a phone meeting with hospital administrators, computer experts and homeland security officials, the FBI shared some recommendations.

In particular, the agency advised hospital executives to limit their employees' use of personal email accounts.

Networks should also be disconnected from the Internet when possible.

Institutional managers also have an interest in checking that their data backup is activated and effective.

In the event of an attack, access to information is effectively blocked by the ransomware.

The operation of hospitals is completely disrupted, with fatal risks to the key.

The specialist in cybersecurity Allan Liska evokes "a coordinated attack" and "six hospitals affected in one day".

The FBI said that in recent attacks, hackers used Ryuk and Trackbot ransomware despite recent steps Microsoft took to make the latter virus inoperable.

Over the past three months, the number of ransomware cyber attacks in the United States has increased by 50%, according to specialist firm Check Point.

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