397/67 Friday, November 8, 2024
Memorial Hospital and Manor in Bainbridge, Georgia, was hit by a ransomware attack, temporarily disabling its electronic health records (EHR) system. The hospital provides a range of medical services to residents of Decatur County and surrounding areas, including emergency care, surgeries, and long-term care at its nursing home facility. In a statement posted on Facebook, the hospital confirmed the incident, assuring that patient care would not be impacted despite the system outage. Staff have switched to manual record-keeping, which may cause delays in services. The attack was detected last Saturday after antivirus software alerted staff to potential risks, and the IT team is working to restore affected systems.
The ransomware group known as Embargo claimed responsibility for the attack, stating they had stolen up to 1.15 terabytes of data from the hospital. Embargo, which has been active since April 2024, operates using ransomware-as-a-service and has reportedly targeted other healthcare institutions in the U.S., including NorthBay Healthcare and Weiser Memorial Hospital.
This incident is part of a rising trend of ransomware attacks targeting healthcare facilities in the U.S. In 2024 alone, there have been 98 reported attacks, affecting the data of over 117 million patients, forcing many hospitals to revert to manual processes to maintain operations.
Source https://securityaffairs.com/170629/cyber-crime/memorial-hospital-and-manor-ransomware-attack.html
