WASHINGTON, D.C. — A western Pennsylvania hospital system was one of several victims of what officials said were coordinated worldwide computer attacks conducted by six Russian military officers.
A federal grand jury in Pittsburgh indicted the six members of Unit 74455 of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), a military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, with conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and false registration of a domain name.
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According to the United States Department of Justice, these attacks caused damage and disruption to computer networks worldwide, including in France, Georgia, the Netherlands, Korea, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
One of the six defendants was previously charged in the 2016 U.S. elections tampering attacks.
Victims of the attacks included hospitals and other medical facilities in the Heritage Valley Health System in Pennsylvania; a FedEx subsidiary, TNT Express B.V.; and a large U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturer, which together suffered nearly $1 billion in losses from the attacks.
“While Heritage Valley spent more than $2 million responding to and recovering from the attack. the disruption of critical healthcare to patients can not be quantified monetarily,” U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said.
Officials said the cyber-attacks also included Russian government efforts to undermine, retaliate against, or otherwise destabilize Ukraine, Georgia, elections in France, efforts to hold Russia accountable for its use of a weapons-grade nerve agent Novichok on foreign soil and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games after Russian athletes were banned due to government-sponsored doping efforts.
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“No country has weaponized its cyber capabilities as maliciously or irresponsibly as Russia, wantonly causing unprecedented damage to pursue small tactical advantages and to satisfy fits of spite,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. “Today the department has charged these Russian officers with conducting the most disruptive and destructive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group, including by unleashing the NotPetya malware. No nation will recapture greatness while behaving in this way.”
Heritage Valley Health System sent Channel 11 a statement:
“Along with several other organizations, Heritage Valley Health System fell victim to a cyber-security incident in June 2017. The incident was identified as a ransomware attack that affected a number of organizations and there was no indication that Heritage Valley Health System was specifically targeted. At that time, the Health System implemented downtime procedures and continued care delivery until systems were restored. We were made aware today of the filing of the federal indictment by the U.S. Justice Department and that we were named as a victim.”
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