chicago — The hospital system said cybercriminals stole patient data in a ransomware attack, forcing Ascension to return to using paperwork last month.
The video in the player above is from a previous report.
Ascension said in a statement published on Wednesday that data was stolen from seven of its approximately 25,000 servers across the country. Some stolen files contain health data and personally identifiable information.
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Ascension said there was no evidence that data was stolen from its electronic health records, which contain complete patient records.
The attacker infiltrated the hospital's network after an employee accidentally downloaded a malicious file, according to Ascension.
The hospital system said it did not know exactly which patients were affected in the May 8 attack. As a precaution, Ascension offers all patients free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services through its call center at 1-888-498-8066.
Read more | Ascension Health faces a cybersecurity issue and detects “unusual activity” in its network systems
Earlier this week, Ascension said it had restored electronic records systems to its hospitals in Illinois. The hospital group operates 150 sites of care and more than a dozen hospitals in Illinois, including Ascension Resurrection in Chicago, St. Alexius in Hoffman Estates and Alexian Brothers in Elk Grove Village.
Cybercriminals are targeting hospital systems more often, with attacks nearly doubling between 2018 and 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Biden administration last month announced plans to impose cybersecurity standards for hospitals after a hack at Change Healthcare, part of UnitedHealth Group Inc, exposed the data of 100 million Americans.
At least two other hospital systems in the Chicago area have been attacked this year. The University of Chicago Medical Center said it was the victim of a hack that may have exposed patient data in late May. A hack at Lurie Children's Hospital in January took down its phone, email and computer system for six weeks.
Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation into a hack of the Cook County hospital system that likely affected 1.2 million patients, the Sun-Times reported Monday. One class action lawsuit states that the county health system learned of the problem in July 2023 but did not notify patients for three months.
