Ransomware hits Chicago Med (TV drama series)

So tonight, on the American TV show Chicago Med, the show dealt with the issue of ransomware. In this episode, the hospital’s entire computer network was locked out by Ransomware thus crippling the entire hospital.

For the record, Chicago Med is a fictional TV drama series about a Chicago hospital’s emergency department and its staff. Tonight’s episode title was Ctrl Alt.

Anyway, the chief of staff took the stand that they wouldn’t pay citing this would only embolden further attacks upon other hospitals. She also ordered no one on the staff pay. However, many of the staff felt this was a small price to pay in providing the most efficient means of providing for their patients.

With that, I ask what are your thoughts are on this? How would you handle this being Chief of Staff? What if you paid and became a soft target? What would you do as a staff member?

For me, this is somewhat easy, but also hard. On surface, pay the ransom to insure your patients have all the tools available to them for the best treatments. On the other hand, I need to consider the precedence I set since may make myself and others a soft target for repeated attacks. If this happens again, once again, I’m crippled, and this time the ransom may be even higher than anyone could pay.

Were I a doctor and this was hindering my ability to treat my patients I would have gone against orders and paid. However, that's an "in the moment" decision and not one of long term thinking.

Thoughts?

The backups that were encrypted with the rest of the data on network... right?

As an IT staff member you should be prepared and have offsite differential backups done half hourly. Especially in Hospitals where records can change quickly.