A ransomware group is demanding money from Jackson-based University of Mississippi Medical Center after a Feb. 19 cyberattack, a health system leader told SuperTalk Mississippi.
After the hack, the health system took some of its IT systems offline to contain the incident, closed its 35 outpatient clinics and canceled elective procedures. UMMC is not disclosing whether it is negotiating with the hackers.
“They did leave demands, and again and sadly, everyone wants to know [how much],” LouAnn Woodward, MD, vice chancellor for health affairs at UMMC, told the radio station Feb. 24. “But that’s part of what we’re not sharing with the public.”
Asked for an update, a UMMC spokesperson told Becker’s: “We will have no comment on that topic at this time. All status updates will be posted to our social media accounts.”
In a Feb. 25 social media post, the organization said it is “making significant progress in responding to the cyberattack and restoring our systems,” but that clinic appointments and elective procedures are canceled through Feb. 27. The system set up a triage line Feb. 23 for patients to leave messages about health matters.
The organization is also trying to determine what data was affected by the breach.
“Our electronic health record was one of the components that we know was impacted by the attack,” Dr. Woodward told SuperTalk. “What we are trying to learn is what has been encrypted, what has been exported or exfiltrated. So that’s some of the effort that is going on now and has been going on since last Thursday. That takes time to test and validate.
“Our highest concern is getting our services back up and being able to take care of our patients, but very quickly right after that is the integrity of patient data.”
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