FBI warns of 'imminent' cyber crime threat to hospitals in US

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned of an impending wave of cyberattacksonhospitalsand healthcare providers in the United States,urging them to increase their protection.

An advisory released by the FBI and two other government agencies said they had "credible information" that hackers weretargeting the healthcare sectorusing malware, "often leading to ransomware attacks, data theft, and the disruption of healthcare services."

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The threat comes as UShospitalsgrapple with rising numbers of coronavirus cases, during a pandemic that has so farkilled more than 226,000 people in the country.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software used by cybercriminals to encrypt users' files until a ransom is paid.

Healthcare institutions have been frequent victims of ransomware for several years in the US and globally.

Last month, a suspected ransomware attack disrupted patient care at a large chain ofhospitalsand clinicsoperating in the United States and Britain.

In 2017, the UK's national healthcare system was one of the victims of a wave of global ransomware attacks, prompting some of itshospitalsto divert ambulances and scrap operations.

The federal agencies urged US healthcare providers to take "timely and reasonable precautions" to protect their networks.

They encouraged healthcare providers to patch their operating systems, software, and firmware as soon as possible, and to conduct antivirus and anti-malware scans regularly.

The agencies also recommended changing passwords regularly and using multi-factor authentication.