Baby dies from ransomware attack on hospital, lawsuit says

An Alabama baby was born with a serious brain injury and ultimately died from botched care because his hospital was battling a ransomware attack, a lawsuit has found.

The filing is the first credible public claim that someone’s death was caused at least in part by hackers who remotely shut down hospital computers as part of an extortion attempt, a tendency to the rise in cybercrime.

The lawsuit, filed by Teiranni Kidd, the baby’s mother, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. He alleges that the hospital, Springhill Medical Center, did not tell him that the hospital’s computers were down due to a cyber attack, and subsequently provided her with severely reduced care when she arrived. to give birth to her daughter.

Springhill announced in 2019 that it was the victim of a “network security incident”, a common euphemism for a cyber attack. As reported at the time by the local news station WKRG, Springhill was claiming to see a steady volume of patients at the time, although he was refusing some because of the ransomware attack.

Kidd first sued the hospital in January 2020, then changed the lawsuit in July after his daughter’s death. The hospital did not respond to a request for comment. Through his lawyer, Kidd declined to comment as the trial is ongoing.

According to the lawsuit, Kidd was not told Springhill was in the throes of a cyberattack when she entered to give birth to her daughter, and doctors and nurses subsequently missed a number of key tests that allegedly showed the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck. , resulting in brain damage and death nine months later.

If she had known that pirates had attacked the hospital, Kidd would have chosen to give birth elsewhere, according to the prosecution.

Ransomware, in which hackers lock down a victim’s computers and demand payment for a program to make them usable again, is a growing, multi-billion dollar global cybercrime industry. About 850 healthcare networks and hospitals in the United States have been affected by ransomware so far this year alone, said Allan Liska, ransomware analyst for cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Cyber ​​security experts are particularly concerned about attacks on healthcare facilities, which can be quickly disrupted if their computer networks go down. For years, they sadly waited for the first confirmed death from a ransomware attack in a hospital.

“It’s a terrible thing, but we’ve been expecting this to happen for years, because when things go wrong someone will eventually die,” Liska said.

A German woman died in 2020 after being redirected to another emergency room because the nearest hospital was hit by ransomware. But government authorities later found that there wasn’t enough evidence that the ransomware played a key role in his death.

Cyrus Farivar contributed.