On October 27, 2020, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned the health care industry about “an imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers.”

According to the warning, which was shared during a conference call, the government has received “credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers.” The information was being shared with participants so they can take timely precautions to protect their networks from the threat.

According to KrebsonSecurity, the threat is believed to stem from a Russian cybercriminal gang that may be deploying Ryuk ransomware to more than 400 health care facilities in the U.S. It appears the attack is planned to be coordinated in order to maximize disruption in the health care sector.

Hospitals are urged to confirm that patching of all known vulnerabilities has been completed. Mandiant Solutions has released a list of domains and Internet addresses that have been used by Ryuk in the past in order to assist hospitals with identifying known methods used to infiltrate systems.

Based upon these warnings, hospitals and health care providers may wish to consider prioritizing patching and blacklisting the known domains and Internet addresses used by Ryuk today.