Infected by ransomware, hospitals around the country have been forced to pay hefty sums to criminal hackers.
One of the most extreme cases took place in February, when Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center handed over $17,000 to hackers who took over its systems. Since then, two other hospitals in California, as well as in Kentucky and Maryland, were also hit, NBC News reported.
While ransomware isn't new, it was rare in the past for hospitals to be targeted, according to Kevin Haley, director of Symantec Security Response.
What changed? That $17,000 payday made headlines.
"This was a very public case of a hospital paying a great deal of money to make a problem go away," Haley told NBC News. "I think it led to the targeting of these organizations."
