New Jersey orthopedic surgery practice infected with ransomware

Mackenzie Garrity -

A Paramus, N.J.-based orthopedic surgeon is alerting patients that their personal information may have been exposed due to a ransomware attack in January at his practice.

Ronald Snyder, MD, began notifying patients in April of the Jan. 9 ransomware attack. The orthopedic surgeon and his staff discovered electronic information stored on a computer server had been encrypted with ransomware by an unknown person.

Dr. Snyder was able to regain access to almost all of the patient data that had been encrypted through backup copies he kept stored. He also contacted outside cybersecurity and computer forensic experts to investigate the security breach.

The investigation found that the server that was encrypted stored medical billing information, including names, addresses, dates of birth, gender identifications, co-pay amounts, patient status, employment status, telephone numbers, email addresses and some Social Security numbers.

There has been no evidence that the information has been misused.

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