Source: MBI via Alamy Stock Photo

A rapidly spreading ransomware infection plaguing some 100 hospitals and medical facilities and hospitals in Romania started with an infection at a third-party healthcare platform provider.

The Romanian National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC) said the ransomware originated from Hipocrate Information System (HIS), an integrated healthcare management system platform that is sold by Romanian Soft Company (RSC).

Romania's Pitesi Pediatric Hospital was the first known victim of the domino-effect cyberattack on Feb. 10, and the other hospitals were hit on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12. The unidentified attackers dropped the Backmydata malware — a relative of the Phobos ransomware family — and demanded 3.5 BTC or 157,000 euro.

"Most of the affected hospitals have data backups from the affected servers, with data saved relatively recently (1-2-3 days ago) except for one, whose data was saved 12 days ago. This could allow for easier restoration of services and data," the DNSC said.