Healthcare provider Ascension was hit with a cyberattack this week that cut off access to some of its hospital systems.”On Wednesday, May 8, we detected unusual activity on select technology network systems, which we now believe is due to a cyber security event,” Ascension says. An investigation is ongoing, but “access to some systems have been interrupted as this process continues.” Ascension also reports a “disruption to clinical operations.”According to Reuters, Ascension is “recommending that business partners temporarily suspend the connection to the Ascension environment.” Multiple news outlets report that EMS was directed to bypass Ascension-owned hospitals when transporting patients in for treatment. The non-profit Catholic health system manages 140 hospitals and 40 senior living facilities across 19 states. As ABC KAKE News reports, one of those facilities is located in Wichita, Kansas, where the city’s government was hit by a ransomware attack this week, too.A staff member for an Ascension hospital told the Pensacola News Journal that scheduling and prescription writing systems are affected, and The Washington Post says that digital patient records are also impacted, requiring doctors to use paper records. Ascension says its staff “are trained for these kinds of disruptions and have initiated procedures to ensure patient care delivery continues to be safe and as minimally impacted as possible.”
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Ascension has notified authorities and hired Mandiant to “assist in the investigation and remediation process.” Google-owned Mandiant will help determine if any information was exposed during the hack; patients will be notified if sensitive information was compromised.The Ascension hack is the latest in a string of healthcare-related cyber crimes. UnitedHealth was hit with a ransomware attack earlier this year and paid a reported $22 million ransom, though the data ended up leaking anyway when the hackers demanded more money.
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