A Kentucky hospital hit by a ransomware attack last week has recovered and has its system is "up and running," according to a local TV station.
On Friday, TV 14 News reported that the FBI was investigating a ransomware attack on the hospital's IT system.
David Park, COO of Methodist, said hospital officials were undecided about whether a ransom would be paid.
The hacker's copied patient's records, locked those copies, and deleted the originals, the report said.
"We've notified the FBI, we're dealing with federal authorities on how to deal with it," said Park. "Depending upon the number of records that were locked, depends upon whether we're going to consider looking into whether we pay anything or not."
Hospital officials said patient information was nonetheless secure and a back-up system was activated while the main network was locked down, the news report said.
On Monday, the television station reported the hospital's computer system was back in operation after the attack infected the system through an email filter.
"Methodist Hospital officials say they did not pay the ransom and they tell us no patient data or records have been compromised," the Monday report said.
Ransomware attacks on healthcare and other organizations "will wreak havoc on America's critical infrastructure community," according to a new report published by the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology that also found the malware is now so prevalent it's creating an economy of its own.
Ransomware is responsible for 406,887 attempted infections and accounts for a total of approximately $325 million in damages, according to a November, 2015 report by the Cyber Threat Alliance.
