More frequent attacks call into question the privacy of thousands of doctors and millions of patients.
Ascension, one of the largest private healthcare systems in the United States, has been forced to shut down some of its systems to investigate what the organization describes as a "cybersecurity event." This happened after unusual activity was detected in the organization's network systems on Wednesday, May 8.
The company, which operates 140 hospitals and 40 facilities for the elderly in 19 states of the country, announced an immediate response to the incident, launching an investigation and activating remedial measures. Access to some systems is currently suspended.
Ascension also called on its business partners to temporarily stop connecting to their systems. "Due to increased caution, we recommend that business partners temporarily suspend connection to the Ascension environment. We will notify our partners when the connection is secure again," the company added.
The incident affected the day-to-day operations of the medical network. The impact and duration of the violation is currently being assessed. Ascension also notified the relevant authorities about the cyberattack and engaged experts from Mandiant to help investigate and restore the systems ' functionality.
According to a statement published on Ascension's official website, the situation remains unresolved. The company promised to post further updates regarding the incident in a timely manner.
Recently, attackers have increasingly used social engineering tactics to attack IT support services in the health and public health sectors, as reported last month by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Attacks include deceiving support staff of medical organizations to register new multi-factor authentication devices controlled by attackers. This allows the latter to access both corporate resources of companies, as well as personal data of employees and patients.
Ascension, one of the largest private healthcare systems in the United States, has been forced to shut down some of its systems to investigate what the organization describes as a "cybersecurity event." This happened after unusual activity was detected in the organization's network systems on Wednesday, May 8.
The company, which operates 140 hospitals and 40 facilities for the elderly in 19 states of the country, announced an immediate response to the incident, launching an investigation and activating remedial measures. Access to some systems is currently suspended.
Ascension also called on its business partners to temporarily stop connecting to their systems. "Due to increased caution, we recommend that business partners temporarily suspend connection to the Ascension environment. We will notify our partners when the connection is secure again," the company added.
The incident affected the day-to-day operations of the medical network. The impact and duration of the violation is currently being assessed. Ascension also notified the relevant authorities about the cyberattack and engaged experts from Mandiant to help investigate and restore the systems ' functionality.
According to a statement published on Ascension's official website, the situation remains unresolved. The company promised to post further updates regarding the incident in a timely manner.
Recently, attackers have increasingly used social engineering tactics to attack IT support services in the health and public health sectors, as reported last month by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Attacks include deceiving support staff of medical organizations to register new multi-factor authentication devices controlled by attackers. This allows the latter to access both corporate resources of companies, as well as personal data of employees and patients.
