The CEO of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center says the hospital decided to pay ransom to hackers who were holding its computer network hostage because that was the "quickest and most efficient way" to regain control of the system. The hospital paid the ransom using the digital currency bitcoins, in an amount worth about $17,000, after falling victim to what's commonly called "ransomware" - where hackers seize control of a computer system and threaten to misuse or destroy data if they're not paid. In this case, the hackers encrypted the hospital's data and demanded payment in exchange for a digital key to unlock it.
CEO Allen Stefanek issued a statement about the incident, saying: "The quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions was to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key. In the best interest of restoring normal operations, we did this." Stefanek said the infiltration at Hollywood Presbyterian was first noticed on Feb. 5, and that its system was fully functioning again by Monday, 10 days later.
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