Ransomware Groups Pledge to Not Target Hospitals

With the outbreak of the Coronavirus, health organizations throughout the world are doing their best to deal with the increasingly difficult situation. What certainly wouldn’t help matters, however, is if they were to be subjected to ransomware attacks.

There is, however, some good news in that regard. In a report via BleepingComputer, at least two recognized groups that engage in this activity have pledged that they will make no attempts to target any health-based operation.

Ransomware Groups Make Health Pledge

In the report, several groups known to engage with ransomware attacks were contacted asking specifically if they would continue to attempt to target health organizations. While only two responded, the good news is that they confirmed that they either didn’t engage in this behavior or would (at least during the crisis) stop.

“We always try to avoid hospitals, nursing homes, if it’s some local gov – we always do not touch 911 (only occasionally is possible or due to missconfig in their network) . Not only now.

If we do it by mistake – we’ll decrypt for free. But some companies usually try to represent themselves as something other. We have development company that tried to be small real estate. Had another company that tried to be dog shelter ) So if this happens we’ll do double, triple check before releasing decrypt for free to such a things. But about pharma – they earns lot of extra on panic nowdays, we have no any wish to support them. While doctors do something, those guys earns.”

Another group has said:

“We [will] also stop all activity versus all kinds of medical organizations until the stabilization of the situation with virus.”

Good News?…

While we still think that ransomware is one of the most odious types of malware around, this is at least some positive news. Admittedly, we’d have preferred it if they said that they were going to stop all activities entirely. At least two of the groups have acknowledged that such attacks would be entirely ridiculous at the moment. There is clearly some common sense out there in the malware world!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!