WASHINGTON: A 45-year-old Indian-origin man has been charged with conducting a cyber-attack on a hospital in the US state of Georgia in 2018. Vikas Singla, a resident of Marietta, Georgia, was indicted by a federal grand jury in state capital Atlanta on June 8, 2021.
Singla, who at the time worked as a chief operating officer at a metro-Atlanta network security company that served the healthcare industry, allegedly conducted the cyberattack on Gwinnett Medical Center in 2018, Acting US Attorney Erskine said in a Justice Department statement on Thursday.
The indictment and other information presented in court state that Singla was responsible for disrupting phone service, obtaining information from a digitising device, and disrupted network printer service. It says the attack was conducted, in part, for financial gain.
In total, Singla is facing 17 counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and one count of obtaining information from a protected computer. "Criminal disruptions of hospital computer networks can have tragic consequences. The department is committed to holding accountable those who endanger the lives of patients by damaging computers that are essential in the operation of our healthcare system," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas L McQuaid of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.
This case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Notably, the cases is being prosecuted by Indian-origin Assistant US Attorney Samir Kaushal. The Trial Attorney is Brian Mund of the US Department of Justice, Criminal Division's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section.