“It’s like 1975!”—Cyber Incident Takes Down Electronic Systems at Brockton Hospital
On April 6, Brockton Hospital declared a “code black” after a cybersecurity incident took many of its electronic systems offline.
Electronic systems in hospitals are essential as they are used for charting, examinations, and countless other patient care tasks. An incident like the one at Brockton Hospital can put a stopper in the whole day, and that’s just what happened.
To be able to properly serve patients already within the hospital, ambulances had to be diverted to other hospitals and cancer treatments were rescheduled as Brockton Hospital employees prayed the incident would be resolved quickly.
However, it took about two weeks for the hospital to return to any semblance of normalcy. Until then, the hospital had to revert back to a time where everything was on paper. Writing up paper charts and manually delivering hard copies of test results. During this time, ambulances remained diverted, patients experienced long delays in urgent care, and prescriptions were unable to be refilled.
“It’s like 1975!” Victoria Wainwright, a Brocktonian who has been working trying to get medications refilled, exclaimed.
On April 15, Brockton Hospital began accepting ambulances again as enough services were restored for the hospital to function semi-normally. Some systems remain down, as the hospital is still struggling to fully recover everything to how it was prior to the incident.
“We are working closely with a team of outside experts who continue to guide us as we follow a phased approach to ensure stability and security,” announced Bob Haffley, CEO of Signature Healthcare, the company that owns the Brockton hospital.
The Anubis ransomware-as-a-service group has claimed responsibility for the attack. This group steals data and encrypts files, only releasing the stolen data and recovering encrypted files after receiving a ransom.
According to SuspectFile, who was contacted by a member of the Anubis group, this attack consisted of the encryption of many hospital files and an imminent threat of publishing hospital data onto a data leak site. The extent of the data stolen is unknown as the hospital continues to prioritize quality patient care. Investigation surrounding the attack remains ongoing with the federal authorities involved.
