Verge August 19, 2021
A natural experiment in Vermont helped show the impacts
In late October 2020, the University of Vermont Health Network was hit by a ransomware attack. The system couldn’t access electronic health records for nearly a month. Every computer at UVM Medical Center was infected with malware. Hospitals in the network delayed chemotherapy and mammogram appointments, just as COVID-19 cases in the United States started to tick upward in what would become an enormous winter wave.
Intuitively, cyberattacks on hospitals seem like they’d be dangerous for patients. Shutting down computer systems shuts off access to patient scans, can lock physicians out of tools they need to provide care, and creates backlogs in the operating systems. But despite years of attacks, there’s...
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