HHS alerts health sector to cyberthreat from Qilin ransomware group 

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) this week released an advisory about Qilin, formerly “Agenda,” a ransomware-as-a-service group targeting health care and other industries worldwide. The group was observed recruiting affiliates in late 2023, and has variants written in Golang and Rust, HC3 said. Qilin is known to gain initial access through spear phishing, as well as leveraging remote monitoring and management and other common tools in cyberattacks. The group is also known to practice double extortion. HC3 said the group’s targeting appears to be opportunistic rather than targeted. 

“According to HC3 and open-source information, the Qilin Russian-connected ransomware group was implicated in the recent ransomware attack against a UK-based blood pathology and diagnostic services provider,” said John Riggi, AHA national advisor for cybersecurity and risk. “This attack has caused significant disruption to the blood supply and patient care for several major London hospitals, resulting in canceled surgeries and organ transplant procedures. This incident once again reminds us to ensure hospitals and health systems have identified all of their life-critical and mission-critical third-party service and supply chain providers. It is recommended that hospitals and health systems develop and test business and clinical continuity procedures and supply chain resiliency to sustain a loss of access to life-critical and mission-critical services and supplies for 30 days or longer. It is clear, based upon this and other recent high-impact ransomware attacks, that our cyber adversaries are intent on disrupting health care delivery on a systemic level.” 
 
For more information on this or other cyber and risk issues, contact Riggi at [email protected]. For the latest cyber and risk resources and threat intelligence, visit aha.org/cybersecurity.