Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Hackers Capitalize On Coronavirus Chaos By Launching Particularly Aggressive Attack On HHS
ABC News: Suspicious Cyberactivity Targeting HHS Tied To Coronavirus Response, Sources Say
The Department of Health and Human Services experienced suspicious cyberactivity Sunday night related to its coronavirus response, administration sources confirmed to ABC News Monday. The suspicious activity HHS was not a hack but it may have been a distributed denial of service -- or DDOS -- attack, according to multiple sources. (Santucci, Faulders, Margolin, Barr and Levine, 3/16)
The New York Times: Hackers Attack Health And Human Services Computer System
The incident appeared to be a particularly aggressive, if somewhat conventional, effort to scan the department’s networks for vulnerabilities, and perhaps to try to break into its email system. But while the effort set off alarms, given sensitivities around the work on the coronavirus, officials said they could not determine whether the action was the result of foreign actors or just hackers seizing on the moment to create chaos. (Sanger, Periroth and Rosenberg, 3/16)
The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Health Department Sees Cyber Incident Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, speaking at an afternoon news conference in the White House, said the department had no penetration into its networks and that remote work wasn’t impacted. “The source of this enhanced activity remains under investigation,” Mr. Azar said. In a separate statement, HHS said that it witnessed on Sunday a “significant increase in activity” on its computer infrastructure but had been fully operational throughout an investigation into the issue, which included coordination with federal law enforcement. “Early on while preparing and responding to Covid-19, HHS put extra protections in place,” HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said, naming the disease caused by coronavirus. (Volz and Armour, 3/16)
Modern Healthcare: Hackers Taking Advantage Of COVID-19 To Spread Malware
Frenz said he's seen emails where a sender—pretending to be from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—urges a recipient to open a link that deploys malware. Another scam involves pointing people to an online map that purports to track COVID-19 cases, but actually steals usernames, passwords and credit card numbers stored in a user's browser. (Cohen, 3/16)
The Hill: Health Groups Vulnerable To Cyberattacks As Coronavirus Crisis Ramps Up
Hackers are zeroing in on government health agencies and hospitals, who are already struggling to keep pace with the coronavirus pandemic, as a way to make money and cause disruptions in the midst of a global crisis. These concerns were highlighted Monday when Bloomberg News reported that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), one of the agencies on the front lines of the outbreak, had been breached by hackers. A spokesperson for HHS subsequently told The Hill that the agency “became aware of a significant increase in activity on HHS cyber infrastructure and are fully operational as we actively investigate the matter." (Miller, 3/16)
Meanwhile, in other technology news —
The Washington Post: Google And Verily Scrambled After Trump Announced A Coronavirus Website
Last week, a team of health science experts within Google parent Alphabet Inc. were exploring ways that software could help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Then came the White House news conference, the California governor’s endorsement, the scramble to build a disease screening website in three days — and on Monday, a crush of publicity around how the site failed to live up to expectations. (MacMillan, Kelly, Dwoskin and Dawsey, 3/16)
