Hackers shut down a hospital and hold it ransom. And they got paid!

A group of hackers recently managed to gain access to a Los Angeles area hospital, rendering their systems useless unless the hospital paid them a hefty ransom. The amount they were asking for? about 1.5 million dollars, to be paid in bitcoins.

Somewhat mercifully, the hackers did not interfere with any life sustaining equipment, but still rendered the majority of the hospital useless. Hospital employees were forced to revert to fax machines and hard memos to get any work done. Many patients, who's treatment relied on access to the computer systems, had to be moved to other locations.

The disruption from the hacking group caused so much trouble, the hospital was basically forced to pay the ransom, albeit, they did manage to pay significantly less than the asking price at about $17k worth of bitcoin. Still the prospect of this kind of attack is actually terrifying and this act sets a very dangerous precedence for other would be cyber terrorists.