Cybersecurity Incident Prevents Maryland Health Department From Publishing COVID-19 Case Data

(CNN) — The Maryland Health Department has not published information connected coronavirus lawsuit rates for 9 days arsenic it recovers from a “network information incident,” the section said Tuesday.

The section is focused connected “gaining afloat visibility into the affected web infrastructure” and moving to bring affected IT systems backmost online pursuing the hack, section spokesperson Andy Owen told CNN successful an email.

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In the meantime, information connected vaccinations and hospitalizations, among different accusation related to the virus, is inactive being published, Owen said. “Our remaining information reports volition beryllium updated astatine the earliest opportunity.”

Owen declined to reply questions astir the origin of the hacking incidental oregon erstwhile the section expects to beryllium afloat backmost online.

The Health Department’s webpages archetypal went down earlier this period pursuing the information incident, Owen said successful a erstwhile statement. A fig of authorities agencies are moving with national and authorities instrumentality enforcement offices “to code the incidental and to stitchery further information,” helium said.

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A spokesperson for Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan did not respond to a petition for comment.

The cyberattack marks conscionable the latest illustration of a hacking incidental hindering a healthcare-related enactment during the pandemic. The Los Angeles section of Planned Parenthood suffered a ransomware onslaught successful October that compromised the idiosyncratic accusation of astir 400,000 patients.

Despite the tremendous toll the coronavirus pandemic has taken connected hospitals and clinics, galore cybercriminals person not refrained from holding the machine systems of specified facilities hostage. There were much than 100 publically reported ransomware attacks connected wellness attraction providers successful 2020, much than treble the magnitude successful 2019, according to Allan Liska, elder quality expert astatine the cybersecurity steadfast Recorded Future.

That included a question of hacks of machine networks astatine US hospitals successful the autumn of 2020. One incidental forced hospitals astatine the University of Vermont Health Network to hold chemotherapy and mammogram appointments.

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