{"id":96120,"date":"2019-09-12T08:44:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T15:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/the-new-target-that-enables-ransomware-hackers-to-paralyze-dozens-of-towns-and-businesses-at-once"},"modified":"2019-09-12T10:33:30","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T17:33:30","slug":"the-new-target-that-enables-ransomware-hackers-to-paralyze-dozens-of-towns-and-businesses-at-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/the-new-target-that-enables-ransomware-hackers-to-paralyze-dozens-of-towns-and-businesses-at-once","title":{"rendered":"The new target that enables ransomware hackers to paralyze dozens of towns and businesses at once"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-new-target-that-enables-ransomware-hackers-to-paralyze-dozens-of-towns-and-businesses-at-once.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Cybercriminals are zeroing in on the managed service providers that handle computer systems for local governments and medical clinics.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On July 3, employees at Arbor Dental in Longview, Washington, noticed glitches in their computers and couldn\u2019t view X-rays. Arbor was one of dozens of dental clinics in Oregon and Washington stymied by a ransomware attack that disrupted their business and blocked access to patients\u2019 records.<\/p>\n<p>But the hackers didn\u2019t target the clinics directly. Instead, they infiltrated them by exploiting vulnerable cybersecurity at Portland-based PM Consultants Inc., which handled the dentists\u2019 software updates, firewalls and data backups. Arbor\u2019s frantic calls to PM went to voicemail, said Whitney Joy, the clinic\u2019s office coordinator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cybercriminals are zeroing in on the managed service providers that handle computer systems for local governments and medical clinics. On July 3, employees at Arbor Dental in Longview, Washington, noticed glitches in their computers and couldn\u2019t view X-rays. Arbor was one of dozens of dental clinics in Oregon and Washington stymied by a ransomware attack [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,43,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-business","category-cybercrime-malcode"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96123,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96120\/revisions\/96123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}