From the Associated Press' Big Story:
A Los Angeles hospital paid a ransom of about $17,000 to hackers who infiltrated and disabled its computer network because paying was in the best interest of the hospital and the most efficient way to solve the problem, the medical center's chief executive said Wednesday.
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid the demanded ransom of 40 bitcoins — currently worth $16,664 dollars — after the network infiltration that began Feb. 5, CEO Allen Stefanek said in a statement.
The FBI is investigating the attack, often called "ransomware," where hackers encrypt a computer network's data to hold it "hostage," providing a digital decryption key to unlock it for a price.
"The quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions was to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key," Stefanek said. "In the best interest of restoring normal operations, we did this."...MORE
