Victim of Ransomware Attack Teaches Other Hospitals To Prepare

At the height of this year’s flu season with a winter storm bearing down, Steve Long, CEO of Hancock Health in Indiana, paid a ransom to unlock his computer systems.

“We were very prepared. We understood that cyberattacks are common,” Long told CNBC.

Unfortunately for Hancock Health, the criminals stole and used login credentials of one of the hospital’s hardware vendors to inject malware and encrypt the hospital’s data.

Long is now traveling around the U.S. teaching other health groups what he learned from the experience.

Since the attack, Long said he had held four or five talks with various healthcare groups, and he plans to hold four or more talks over the summer.

Long says patient safety and data restoration should guide everything a health organization does in such an event.

Hancock Health turned to cybersecurity firm Pondurance to identify the cause and scope of the attack.

Read Pondurance’s five best practices for protecting personal health data at CNBC.com.