Los Angeles hospital pays hackers $17,000

The president of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center said on Wednesday that his hospital paid hackers a ransom of $17,000 in bitcoins to regain control of their computer systems after a cyber attack.

Allen Stefanek said in a statement that paying the ransom was the "quickest and most efficient way" of regaining access to the affected systems, which were crippled on Feb 5 and interfered with hospital staff's ability to communicate electronically.

Stefanek said there was no evidence that any patient or employee information was accessed in the so-called malware attack, and that the hospital fully restored access to its electronic medical record system this Monday.