IOWA CITY, Iowa — The University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics website is back up after a Russian hacking group's cyber-attack took the site off the web on Tuesday, Jan. 31, according to Cedar Rapids ABC-affiliate KCRG.
Hospital leaders say their information technology team is investigating what caused the website to go down but didn't confirm whether it resulted from a cyber-attack.
However, BetterCyber, a cyber-security company that monitors attacks worldwide, included UIHC in a list of dozens of sites taken down by the Russian hacking group Killnet. BetterCyber says that the group targets hospitals and medical facilities across all 50 states.
On Monday, Jan. 30, the Department of Health and Human Services warned hospitals nationwide of a threat from the pro-Russian hacking group targeting healthcare facilities. It said the group used DDoS attacks, which basically flood a computer server with data to obstruct its operation and halt it from accessing the internet. The warning notes that the Department of Justice recently targeted DDoS websites and that may create a motive for counterattacks from cyber groups like KillNet.
"On January 28, 2023, the alleged Killnet attack lists for hospitals and medical organizations in several countries was found by users and publically shared," the HHS warning stated.
Tuesday afternoon, UIHC released this statement on the situation:
The public websites of University of Iowa Health Care continue to be down: UI Hospitals & Clinics, UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital, and the Carver College of Medicine. Our information technology (IT) team continues to investigate the issue. These websites do not contain patient data or information. Patient care is not affected by these outages. If you need to book an appointment, please call 800-777-8442 or visit your MyChart account.
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