The second-largest drugmaker in the United States is confirming it’s been affected by a cyberattack.
In a message sent using its verified Twitter account, Merck confirmed Tuesday that its computer network was “compromised” as part of a global attack.
Officials said the Kenilworth, New Jersey-based company was investigating the incident but provided no further details.
Merck has global locations including in Ukraine, where a new and highly virulent outbreak of malicious data-scrambling software causing mass disruption across Europe appeared to be hitting especially hard.
Company and government officials reported serious intrusions at the Ukrainian power grid, banks and government offices, where one senior official posted a photo of a darkened computer screen and the words, “the whole network is down.”
Dutch-based transport company TNT Express, which was taken over last year by FedEx, also said Tuesday that it is suffering computer disruptions. Spokesman Cyrille Gibot says that “like many other companies and institutions around the world, we are experiencing interference with some of our systems within the TNT network. We are assessing the situation and are implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible and we regret any inconvenience to our customers.” He declined further comment.
Pennsylvania health care system
A hospital and health care system based in western Pennsylvania is dealing with a cyberattack that’s being described as “widespread.”
A spokeswoman for Heritage Valley Health System says the attack Tuesday is affecting they entire health system and they are working to ensure safe patient care continues.
Heritage Valley is a $480 million network that provides care for residents of Allegheny, Beaver, Butler and Lawrence counties, in Pennsylvania; parts of eastern Ohio; and the panhandle of West Virginia.
It wasn’t immediately clear if it was related to the outbreak of malicious data-scrambling software that appears to be causing mass disruption across Europe Tuesday.
