MedStar Health said Sunday it had restored use of the computer system physicians use to remotely access medical records at its ten hospitals, according to an update on its website.
The health system took its entire system offline last week after it fell victim to an attack that encrypted data. Ninety percent of its computer systems were back online Friday, including inpatient and outpatient health records and registration and scheduling systems. MedStar reported the problems, which it has described as a computer virus, on Monday.
The hospital network is the latest high-profile victim of a type of attack known as ransomware, in which hackers demand payment in exchange for keys to regain access to data that they have encrypted. The hackers who targeted MedStar sought the equivalent of $18,500 in the digital currency bitcoin, according to a ransom note obtained by The Baltimore Sun.
While the hospital has not acknowledged the attack was ransomware, hospital officials have said they have not paid a ransom to anyone to retrieve files. No patient information was compromised because of the attack, the hospital has said.
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