Lives Were Being Impacted So The Medical Center Had To Fold

Los Angeles' Presbyterian Medical Center, the target of a successful ransomware attack (successful from the thieves' point of view, that is) has buckled under: to regain control of its network, the hospital has paid a 40-bitcoin ransom (about $17,000) to the gang responsible.

That, at least, is a far cry from the much higher ransom widely reported to have been initially demanded: 9,000 bitcoin. (That would have meant a payment of $3.6-3.9 million.)

The FBI is investigating the attack, often called "ransomware," where hackers encrypt a computer network's data to hold it "hostage," providing a digital decryption key to unlock it for a price.

"The quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions was to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key," Stefanek, the medical center's chief executive said.

"In the best interest of restoring normal operations, we did this."

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the agency is investigating the extortion plot, but she could not immediately provide further details.

Neither law enforcement nor the hospital gave any indication of who might have been behind the attack or whether there are any suspects.

Patient care was not affected by the hacking, and there is no evidence any patient data was compromised, Stefanek said.

The 434-bed hospital in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles was founded in 1924.

 It was sold to CHA Medical Center of South Korea in 2004.

It offers a range of services including emergency care, maternity services, cancer care, physical therapy, and specialized operations such as fetal and orthopedic surgeries.