Staff members at the Campbell County Memorial Hosptial are scrambling to operate business as usual after the computer systems at the hospital were struck by ransomware last Friday.
The hospital claims, " All CCH computer systems have been affected, which impacts the organization’s ability to provide patient care". The attack forced the healthcare provider to cancel some surgeries, and cancel all outpatient lab, respiratory therapy, radiology exams and procedures, and new inpatient admissions.
When the incident was first announced, patients were told that the emergency department and walk-in clinic would transfer patients to an appropriate care facility if need be. The hospital has since announced they are working closely with regional facilities to transfer patients they are unable to care for at this time. The Emergency Department is operating and staffed at this time.
Upon discovering the attack, the hospital quickly contacted the authorities who quickly identified the incident as a ransomware attack, but the investigation into the incident is still ongoing. The hospital claims there is no evidence at this time that any patient or employee data was accessed during the attack.
At this time, the hospital is still going to restore complete access to its systems. On Sunday the hospital still has canceled or rescheduled services, but the emergency medical services (EMS), emergency department, maternal child (OB) department, and the walk-in clinic were open. The hospital is advising all patients to call in advance to confirm their appointments.
As the cost of medical records on the black market continues to rise, healthcare providers will continue to be the target of cyber criminals. NNT suggests adopting the foundational security controls prescribed by the leading security frameworks such as HIPAA/HITECH and the CIS with the operational discipline of change management. Having these controls in place will allow you to correlate changes in your IT environment to an approved ticket or set of rules, and prevent and protect against all forms of breaches by gaining full control of changes for security and operational peace of mind.
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