An Illinois hospital is the first health care facility to link its closing to a ransomware attack

A ransomware attack hit SMP Health in 2021 and halted the hospital’s ability to submit claims to insurers, Medicare or Medicaid for months, sending it into a financial spiral.

Quote by Health-ISAC Chief Security Officer, Errol Weiss in NBC News:

“There are countless examples of small businesses that have gone bankrupt following ransomware attacks as they were unable to restore their systems or afford to pay to get back up and running,” Errol Weiss, the chief security officer for Health-ISAC, a nonprofit group that shares cyberthreat information with hospitals, said in an email. “It’s tragic that we can now count a hospital in this statistic.”