Clinicians complete a tracheostomy on a client in a COVID-19 ICU Intensive Treatment Unit in Los Angeles, California. Prosecutors have billed 45-yr-previous security govt Vikas Singla with 18 violations of the Laptop or computer Fraud and Abuse Act similar to a 2018 cyber attack on the Gwinnett Clinical Center in Georgia. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Photographs)
Businesses frequently glance to cybersecurity companies to guard them, but the Office of Justice and prosecutors in Georgia are pursuing felony rates against a Marietta government of a security company for aiding an alleged cyberattack on a Georgia clinical middle in 2018.
An indictment unsealed this 7 days in a Northern District of Ga court docket accuses Vikas Singla, 45, with 18 independent counts of aiding and abetting a 2018 cyber attack from the Gwinnett Professional medical Centre in Ga.
A Division of Justice press release promises the attack concerned disrupting phone support, getting facts from a digitizing product and disrupting network printing expert services. Singla is being charged with 18 violations of the Pc Fraud and Abuse Act, though 16 of these fees require the very same malicious act carried out on 16 diverse printers.
Prosecutors assert the motives underlying Singla’s actions were “personal profit” and “commercial edge.”
“Cyberattacks that focus on crucial infrastructure, like well being care, pose a severe danger to public wellness and safety,” reported Acting U.S. Legal professional Kurt R. Erskine for the Northern District of Georgia in a statement. “In this case, Singla allegedly compromised Gwinnett Clinical Center’s operations in section for his have individual gain.”
Chris Hacker, an FBIsSpecial agent at the Atlanta industry workplace claimed the 2018 attack “not only could have experienced disastrous implications, but patients’ personal information was also compromised.”
The indictment describes Singla as “chief operating officer for a network security company” at the time of the attack but does not identify the organization. In accordance to Singla’s general public LinkedIn profile, he has been chief functioning officer for the Atlanta, Ga-centered security company Securolytics because 2016. A profile of the enterprise on Crunchbase lists Singla as one particular of two founders of the business.
According to their web site, Securolytics delivers security, visibility and monitoring products and services for internet-of-factors units, which includes medical products. Although they do not appear to record their prospects, their technology spouse segment includes a variety of other cloud security businesses, this kind of as Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, IBM SoftLayer, CloudMark, CloudStat, Graphic Analyzer and Cyphort.
Gwinnett Health-related Centre is a non-income health middle that present health products and services to at least two nearby hospitals located in Duluth and Lawrenceville, Georgia. The courtroom documents offer you little element about how Singla aided and abetted the attack over and above alleging that he “knowingly brought about and attempted to lead to the transmission of a software, info, code, and command, and, as a outcome of this sort of carry out, intentionally caused and attempted to result in problems without having authorization to a safeguarded laptop or computer.”
Subsequent court docket paperwork submitted on Friday expose that Singla was taken into custody and has pleaded not guilty to the prices. His bail bond, established at $20,000, was paid out for the very same day and a decide signed an buy for his launch pending a demo.
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