Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) has taken its IT programs offline and suspended non-emergency procedures following a late Thursday cyberattack.
While all its community programs have been taken on-line, TMH says this assault solely impacted a few of them.
Patients who require emergency medical companies (EMS) can even be diverted to different hospitals, as TMH will solely settle for Level 1 traumas from its rapid service space.
“Our IT Department detected this safety concern early and proactively shut down our IT programs to restrict the impression,” TMH stated in an announcement issued on Friday.
“We are reviewing every of our IT programs now, prioritizing them and bringing them again on-line one-by-one. We don’t at present have a timeline for the way lengthy this can take as that is an rising state of affairs, however we are going to proceed to supply updates.”
The regional hospital added that sufferers whose appointments have been affected resulting from this safety breach could be contacted by their suppliers or care services.
See our 12 pm replace under. We can even proceed to publish updates on https://t.co/UGsradFmx8. pic.twitter.com/pn1KWWy8Vz
— Tallahassee Memorial (@TMHFORLIFE) February 3, 2023
“Patient security stays our number-one precedence. We apologize for any inconvenience or delays. We will present further updates as they turn out to be out there,” TMH stated.
“Our group is following current protocols for system downtime and taking steps to attenuate the disruption.”
The hospital reported the incident to legislation enforcement after the breach was found and is now working with them as a part of an ongoing investigation.
TMH is a personal and not-for-profit healthcare system that serves a 21-county area in North Florida and South Georgia via acute care and psychiatric hospitals, a number of specialty care facilities, and 38 affiliated doctor practices.
Second suspected ransomware assault focusing on hospitals this 12 months
The incident is suspected to be the results of a ransomware assault, in response to native media studies that cited inside information from sources with data of the state of affairs.
Throughout final 12 months, the federal authorities has warned about ransomware operations recognized for actively focusing on healthcare organizations throughout the U.S.
For occasion, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) warned of the Royal. Venus, Maui, and Zeppelin ransomware operations actively focusing on the nation’s Healthcare and Public Health (HPH) orgs.
CISA, FBI, and the HHS additionally warned in October that the Daixin Team cybercrime group can be attacking the HPH sector in ongoing ransomware assaults.
“This is the second suspected ransomware incident involving U.S. hospitals in 2023. Last 12 months, there have been 25 assaults in opposition to well being programs working 290 hospitals,” Emsisoft Threat Analyst Brett Callow instructed BleepingComputer.
Atlantic General Hospital in Maryland was additionally hit by a ransomware assault over the weekend, in response to a report from native information outlet WMDT47.