A pro-Russia hacker group known for cyberattacks on Russia's "enemies" has claimed responsibility for a Monday morning cyberattack on 14 American hospitals, the Daily Mail reports.
Killnet brought down the websites through distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
Hospitals affected included some of the top in the nation, such Stanford Healthcare, Duke University Hospital and Cedars-Sinai, according to the report.
Seven of the hospital websites were back in service by noon ET, the Mail said, adding it was not clear why the specific websites were targeted by the group.
Killnet has previously based its attacks in countries that oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with targets including U.S. airports, banks, and defense contractors.
Hospitals in the Netherlands also reported being impacted by a DDoS attack from Russian hackers.
Whether internal systems or patient care was affected is not known, the Mail said, but the University of Michigan said it suffered no such impacts.
DDoS attacks typically do nothing more than temporarily render a website useless.
These attacks work by attempting to overwhelm a website's servers by flooding it with traffic, making it all but impossible to access.
When banking giant JPMorgan Chase was targeted by Killnet in October, the bank said it had no impact on its operations. Similarly, many of the hospitals hit Monday continued posting on social media and did not even mention the issue.
The real purpose of the attacks seems to be causing fear and doubt about the government's ability to control such issues, Brett Callow, a threat analyst with cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, previously told the Mail.
Those affected included: Stanford Healthcare in California; Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina; Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California; University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, in Pennsylvania; Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Abrazo Health in Phoenix, Arizona; and Atlanticare, from Atlantic County, New Jersey; Michigan Medicine, in Ann Arbor, Michigan and its associated Mott Children's Hospital; Huntsville Hospital in Alabama; Anaheim Regional Medical Center in California; Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in California; Buena Vista Regional Medical Center in Storm Lake, Iowa; and Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center in Salina, Colorado.
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