Ardent Health Services, a Tennessee-based healthcare firm, suffered from a serious ransomware attack. This security breach is now affecting 30 hospitals in six US states.
Because of this issue, many patients are being forced to leave emergency rooms and find other hospitals. The American healthcare company said that its system was breached on Nov. 23. Ardent Health Services officials stated that because of the ransomware attack, their network went offline. The breach also suspended user access to its information technology applications.
Ardent Health Services Breach Affects 30 Hospitals in Six US States
An engineer from the Israeli company "Commun.it" uses his expertise in social media commercial analysis to identify networks of fake users during at the group's office in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv on January 23, 2019.
Ardent Health Services spokesperson Will Roberts said that around half of their 25 emergency rooms were still operating on divert. This means that the healthcare firm had to ask affected hospitals to call ambulances to move patients-who need emergency care-to other nearby medical facilities.
Meanwhile, non-emergency procedures were also affected; Ardent had to reschedule them because of the security breach, as reported by Fox News.
"The Ardent technology team immediately began working to understand the event, safeguard data, and regain functionality," said the company via SC Media.
"Ardent proactively took its network offline, suspending all user access to its information technology applications, including corporate servers, Epic software, internet, and clinical programs," the American healthcare company added.
Ardent Health Services said that they already reported the ransomware attack to the police. Aside from this, they also hired threat intelligence advisors, as well as third-party forensics.
As of writing, the company can't confirm the extent of the latest security breach on the health and financial data of patients.
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Why Ardent Security Breach is Alarming
Participant hold their laptops in front of an illuminated wall at the annual Chaos Computer Club (CCC) computer hackers' congress, called 29C3, on December 28, 2012 in Hamburg, Germany. The 29th Chaos Communication Congress (29C3) attracts hundreds of participants worldwide annually.
Although the information affected by the Ardent Health Services ransomware attack is still unknown, this issue is still alarming, especially for American patients.
Ardent is known for the facilities it operates in Kansas, Oklahoma, Idaho, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Texas. This means that many American relies on its hospitals; it has exactly 30 facilities and more than 200 sites of care.
Despite the security breach, Ardent promised that its clinics will remain open and its hospitals will remain operational for medical screenings and stabilizing care for patients.
As of writing, only one Ardent-owned hospital is accepting ambulances. This is the UT Health East Texas, which was recently taken off divert status.
Ardent Health Services said that they will provide an update once the ransomware attack has been solved and will inform patients what information was possibly leaked.
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