The three-hospital health system, which has locations in Canton-Potsdam, Massena and Gouverneur, discovered a new variant of Ryuk ransomware within hours of the initial attack Oct. 27 and disconnected its IT systems in response.
IT applications including medical records, lab and pharmacy systems have been restored at hospitals, clinics and the corporate level, according to the Nov. 6 report. While officials said Massena Hospital was largely unaffected in the attack, they suspended access to most of Canton-Potsdam and Gouverneur hospitals’ computer systems.
During the 10-day system downtime, the hospitals used offline documentation methods to continue providing patient care. The cyberattack is still under investigation, but officials said they don’t believe any patient or employee data were compromised.
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