Hack attack on German hospital costs life

German authorities said yesterday that an apparently misdirected ransomware attack caused the failure of IT systems at amajor hospital in Duesseldorf, and awoman who needed urgent admission died after she had to be taken to another city for treatment. The woman’s death appeared to be the first resulting from a ransomware attack, even if indirectly so. The Duesseldorf University Clinic’s systems have been disrupted for a week. The hospital said investigators have found that the source of the problemwas a hacker attack on aweak spot in ‘‘widely used commercial add-on software,’’ which it didn’t identify. As a consequence, systems gradually crashed and the hospitalwasn’t able to access data; emergency patients were taken elsewhere and operations postponed.