Gwinnett Medical Center Cyberattack Leads To Federal Charges

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA — A Marietta man has been indicted in connection with a 2018 cyberattack on Gwinnett Medical Center that disrupted phones and printers and exposed information from a digitizing device.

Vikas Singla, 45, was charged with 17 counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and one count of obtaining information from a protected computer. He was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Singla, the chief operating officer of a metro-Atlanta network security company that served the healthcare industry, is alleged to have conducted the cyberattack “in part, for financial gain,” according to court documents cited by the Justice Department. The company that employed Singla was not identified in the news release, which was emailed to Patch on Friday.

Singla made his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda T. Walker. The case is being investigated by the FBI.

“Cyberattacks that target important infrastructure, like healthcare, pose a serious threat to public health and safety,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine. “In this case, Singla allegedly compromised Gwinnett Medical Center’s operations in part for his own personal gain.”

Gwinnett Medical Center merged with Northside Hospital in 2019 and is now known as Northside Hospital Gwinnett.

Read the statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.