A cyberattack has been reported at Ascension, a major health care nonprofit organization that includes 140 hospitals and 40 senior living facilities in 19 states. The incident has disrupted clinical operations, prompting the organization to take steps to minimize its impact on patient care. Ascension detected unusual activity on some of its computer systems and initiated an investigation, notifying authorities of the potential breach.
Health care clients are being advised to temporarily cut off network connections to the organization while the incident is being addressed. If any sensitive patient data was compromised in the hack, Ascension will notify those affected. However, it is not yet clear whether the incident involved ransomware or not. Ransomware attacks have become increasingly common in recent years, disrupting patient care and costing millions if not billions of dollars for health care providers in the US.
In February, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group suffered a ransomware attack that caused billing disruptions at pharmacies across the country and threatened to put some health providers out of business. The Ascension spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions regarding the nature of the cyberattack on their organization.