OneBlood, a non-profit blood bank serving a major chunk of U.S. southeast medical facilities, has been hit by a disruptive ransomware attack.
The organization, which provides blood services to more than 300 hospitals in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, said the security breach impacted its software system and slowed down operations.
“Although OneBlood remains operational and continues to collect, test and distribute blood, they are operating at a significantly reduced capacity,” OneBlood said in a statement.
OneBlood senior vice president Susan Forbes said the organization is implementing “manual processes and procedures to remain operational.”
“Manual processes take significantly longer to perform and impact inventory availability. In an effort to further manage the blood supply we have asked the more than 250 hospitals we serve to activate their critical blood shortage protocols and to remain in that status for the time being,” Forbes added.
OneBlood said it is working closely with anti-malware specialists and federal, state and local agencies as part of their incident response plan.
“Our team reacted quickly to assess our systems and began an investigation to confirm the full nature and scope of the event. Our comprehensive response efforts are ongoing and we are working diligently to restore full functionality to our systems as expeditiously as possible,” Forbes said.
Technical details of the ransomware behind this attack are not currently available.
OneBlood is the latest addition to a growing list of hospitals and medical services suppliers falling victim to big-money data extortion malware attacks.
Earlier this month, the U.S. government joined with Mandiant to expose a North Korean APT group caught conducting ransomware attacks against healthcare providers.
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