Ransomware Attack on Medstar: Ethical Position statement
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Abstract
Medstar Health was the target of ransomware attack in 2016. The attack impacted the provision of healthcare services to the patient. Medstar opted not to pay the ransom and, instead, responded by shutting down its electronic medical record (EMR) systems and restoring the data from the backups. The paper analyzes the event, Medstar’s response and its negligent behavior that allowed the vulnerability to be exploited. The author provides an ethical position statement and recommendation to reduce the chances of any future attacks.
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Najam Ul Hassan, University of Maryland University College, USA
The author has over two decades of IT experience and is a professional IT project management consultant at an international IT consulting firm and an adjunct associate professor of cybersecurity at a state university. He has masters in computer science, business administration, and international management and he is working on his Ph.D. in business analytics and decision sciences.
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