Ransomware infections can have disastrous consequences for victims for both victims and threat actors. An example of this is the case of Teiranni Kidd, a woman who gave birth to a baby girl in 2019 without knowing that the hospital where she gave birth was recovering from a severe malware infection that led to the disruption of some critical systems and the eventual death of the newborn.
Teiranni has taken his case to U.S. courts, where he hopes those responsible for his daughter’s death will be punished.
According to court documents, the attack made records at Springhill Medical Center in Alabama inaccessible. During delivery, staff was disconnected from the equipment that monitors fetal heartbeats, which under normal conditions are recorded on a large screen at the nurses’ station and in the delivery room.
Kidd argues that the failure of this system can be considered medical malpractice, as hospital staff was unable to notice that the baby was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, which caused severe brain damage and caused her death a few months later.
In a conversation via text message, Dr. Katelyn Parnell acknowledged that the baby could have been received by cesarean section if medical staff had been able to see the readings of the affected monitors.
On the other hand, legal representatives of the hospital deny that the staff acted badly, since they simply worked with the resources they had at their disposal. Jeffrey St. Clair, Chief Executive of Springhill, says the hospital properly handled the delivery, trying to contain the incident and provide appropriate health services.
In addition, Parnell stated that he was aware of the cyberattack, but believed that there was no impediment for Kidd to give birth on the hospital premises. No doubt this is a very controversial case and the authorities in charge have a very difficult task ahead of them, so we will have to wait for the case to be resolved.
This isn’t the first time ransomware-related homicide charges have been filed, but it’s the first time a case has made it to court. The closest was an incident last September, when a German patient died while in an ambulance that had been diverted due to a hospital being seized by ransomware.
To learn more about information security risks, malware variants, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) websites.
He is a cyber security and malware researcher. He studied Computer Science and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2006. He is actively working as an cyber security investigator. He also worked for different security companies. His everyday job includes researching about new cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in enterprise security implementation.