Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Florida Hospital Cancels Procedures, Diverts Patients Following Cyberattack

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare was forced to cancel procedures and divert patients after taking systems offline following a Thursday night cyberattack.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) has canceled procedures and is diverting some patients following a cyberattack that forced it to take some IT systems offline.

Founded in 1948, the not-for-profit community healthcare system provides acute and other types of healthcare services to a 21-county area in North Florida, South Georgia and South Alabama.

On February 3, TMH announced that, late Thursday night, it fell victim to a cyberattack that forced it to disconnect some of its IT systems and start operating under downtime protocols.

On February 5, the healthcare services provider announced that the situation had not been remedied, with all non-emergency surgical and outpatient procedures initially scheduled for February 6 being canceled and rescheduled.

TMH announced that it implemented incident response protocols immediately after discovering the incident, and that backup and downtime protocols it has in place allow it to continue to provide care to its patients.

“We are still operating under downtime procedures, which means we are using paper documentation. We apologize for any delays this may create. We practice for situations like this, and we are prepared to provide safe, high-quality care to our patients during computer system downtimes,” the healthcare provider said on Sunday.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

TMH also said that an investigation into the incident was ongoing, without providing details on the type of cyberattack it experienced or on whether any personal or health information was compromised during the attack.

However, the fact that the organization was forced to disconnect some of its IT systems to contain the incident suggests that ransomware might have been involved.

SecurityWeek has emailed TMH for additional information on the incident and will update this article as soon as a reply arrives.

Related: Ransomware Hit 200 US Gov, Education and Healthcare Organizations in 2022

Related: Data Breach at Louisiana Healthcare Provider Impacts 270,000 Patients

Related: Healthcare Organizations Warned of Royal Ransomware Attacks

Written By

Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

In cyber-physical systems (CPS), just one hour of downtime can outweigh an entire annual security budget. Learn how to master the Return on Security Investment (ROSI) to align security goals with the bottom-line priorities.

Register

Delve into big-picture strategies to reduce attack surfaces, improve patch management, conduct post-incident forensics, and tools and tricks needed in a modern organization.

Register

People on the Move

Malwarebytes has named Chung Ip as Chief Financial Officer.

Semperis has appointed John Podboy as Chief Information Security Officer.

Randy Menon has become Chief Product and Marketing Officer at One Identity.

More People On The Move

Expert Insights

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest cybersecurity news, threats, and expert insights. Unsubscribe at any time.