What happened?

Last week patients at the Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville Georgia had to be turned away as an “unidentified malware” caused havoc with the hospitals internal network. The problem was so severe that hospital workers were forced to return to using paper documentation for existing patients and was forced to divert all non-emergency admissions to other medical centers.

What type of attack was it?

The cause of the outbreak, which lasted from Wednesday until Saturday, is still unknown but given the symptoms mentioned in reports, a worm infection (for example by Conficker or one of its variants) seems the most likely cause, which could have spread rapidly across the hospital’s network forcing IT to pull connectivity to avoid it spreading further with unknown consequences.

Gwinnett Medical Center spokesperson, Beth Okun emphasized that “It’s not affecting patient care in any way, shape or form,” she said adding that patient data had not been at risk.

Has this sort of thing happened before?

Unfortunately, the attack is not the first of its kind, with New Zealand’s St John Ambulance Service coming under attack only a few weeks ago, forcing administrators to direct staff to emergencies via radio contact.

Further back, three hospitals in London were forced closed in 2008 after nearly 5,000 computers became infected with a computer worm.

Should I be worried?

As the hospital ensures that no customer data was leaked during the attack, there should be little cause for concern to most end users.

For your own personal security, we at AVG would strongly recommend that you protect your PC and your data with security software. Security software is your basic front line defense and warning system to keep your system clear from malware infection.

If you’re unsure of where to start, we offer free antivirus protection, just visit http://free.avg.com