Information technology professionals at hospitals across Minnesota sprang into action and worked on cybersecurity preparations throughout the weekend to avoid the crippling "ransomware" attacks that hit vital services and companies across the world Friday.
Although it doesn't appear that hospitals were specifically targeted in the "WannaCry" ransomware attack — which seemed to ebb on Monday — health care providers are considered particularly vulnerable to attacks that attempt to force victims to pay money to unlock their files on infected computers.
So far no Minnesota hospital has reported being infected with the "WannaCry" malware program, which shut down dozens of hospitals in the United Kingdom on Friday and went on to infect health care, education, manufacturing and government facilities in more than 100 other countries over the Mother's Day weekend.
Experts warn that new and more effective versions could emerge in coming days. WannaCry is a self-replicating computer program that gets into a system and automatically encrypts valuable files to force the victim to pay a $300 ransom in the digital crypto-currency Bitcoin.
In the meantime, authorities continue working to catch the extortionists behind it — a difficult task that involves searching for digital clues and following the money.
Among their findings so far: the first suggestions of a possible connection between the ransomware and hackers linked to North Korea. Those findings remain quite tentative; one firm advancing the possible ties described them as intriguing but still "weak."
Ransomware attacks are common in large organizations, including in U.S. hospitals, but the WannaCry worm is unique because of how rapidly it can spread to compromise an entire network, said Axel Wirth, a health care security expert with cybersecurity firm Symantec.
The worm exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows, though Microsoft released a security update for it in March. Older versions of Windows and computers that haven't been patched are the most vulnerable, according to the Minnesota Hospital Association's vice president, Mark Sonneborn.