The Los Angeles-based Keck Medical Center, part of the University of Southern California, has confirmed that two if its servers were hit with ransomware last month, leading to encrypted files that employees could not access.
According to a statement from the organization released last week, “The attack was quickly contained and isolated to prevent the spreading of malware to other servers.” Data from the encrypted servers was fully restored within several days and no ransom was paid, according to the organization. Officials stated that there is no evidence that data was retrieved or accessed as a result of this ransomware.
“Typically, ransomware is used to deny users access to their information in order to quickly extract money from the data owners—not to steal data. However, as a precaution, we are providing this notice to patients or other individuals whose health or other personal information was in the encrypted folders.”
What’s more, the infected servers do not store Keck's electronic medical record (EMR). Instead, many of the encrypted folders are departmental files that contain internal operational documents such as templates, training manuals, and human resource materials. Sensitive data did however include demographic information, date of birth, identifiable health information, including treatment and diagnosis for some patients, and in some cases, social security numbers.
Regarding the ransomware crisis that is continuing to plague healthcare and other industries, the issue of paying the ransom or not has been a hot one. Recently, the Tulsa, Okla.-based Saint Francis Health System decided not to act on a ransom demand when it was victimized by a breach earlier this month in which approximately 6,000 names and addresses were compromised.
