A prolific ransomware group apologized to a children’s hospital and offered free decryption keys after its facility was compromised in mid-December.
The incident occurred on the evening of December 18, 2022 local time at the SickKids hospital in Toronto.
Canada’s largest children’s hospital said in a statement that it had “quickly mobilized to mitigate any potential impact on continuity of care”, but acknowledged it would take “several weeks” for the system to return to normal. rice field.
“Clinical teams are currently experiencing delays in obtaining lab and imaging results, which could result in longer waiting times for patients and families,” they reportedly warned at the time.
However, the LockBit affiliate responsible was in fact violating the group’s policy on targeting, later saying in a short statement on New Year’s Eve.
“We formally apologize for the attack on sickkids.ca and will return the decryptor free of charge,” the statement said. Reposted by Brett Callow, Emsisoft Threat Analyst“The partner who attacked this hospital violated our rules and has been blocked and removed from the affiliate program.”
According to the group’s rules on targeting organizations, affiliates are only allowed to “very deliberately and selectively attack medical institutions such as pharmaceutical companies, dental clinics, plastic surgery,” and certain other institutions. .
“Encrypting institutions such as cardiology centers, neurosurgeons, and maternity hospitals where damage to files could lead to death, i.e. where high-tech computer-assisted surgical procedures may be performed. is prohibited,” the notice continues.
As Callow claimed at the time, this isn’t the first time the decryption key has been handed over to the hospital by the group that attacked it. The same thing happened when Conti helped the Irish Health Services Executive (HSE) and Doppelpaymer gifted Helios University Hospital with a decryption tool.
But it’s still unclear why the developers behind LockBit waited nearly two weeks before taking action to help the hospital.
