Fake emails often source of network attacks

Continued from Page 1 of care when clinical systems are impaired or completely unavailable,” she said.

Keiser also said that hospital personnel are doing whatever they can to protect the privacy and security of all information within the system, which includes patient records. And that assumes they have anything to do, as federal cybersecurity officials say a ransomware attack does not always involve a breach of sensitive data.

According to the Federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, the goal of ransomware attacks is to strike quickly, take over a system, collect a ransom to re-open it and move on to the next target.

A data breach, however, can be a separate event that takes more time because accessing the information in a system involves more than gaining entry. It means getting to files through more layers of security and, in the case of sensitive information, cracking the encryptions that protect those files.

Even while the network is down, the hospital’s emergency room is still receiving and treating patients, Keiser said, and elective surgeries and other outpatient services are continuing. The Atlantic General Health System offices also remain open to care for acute patients. Personnel are still treating patients as well in the John H. “Jack” Burbage Regional Cancer Center, pulmonary function center, wound and endoscopy centers, and the facility’s behavioral health crisis center.

The hospital outpatient walk-in laboratory will be closed as the network issue is addressed, and patients scheduled for imaging will be contacted to reschedule their appointments until further notice.

While ransomware attacks have not typically occurred in this area, a little over a year ago cybercriminals took over the Maryland Department of Health network and held it hostage. That strike was one of more than 3,000 such attacks that occurred nationwide over the past two years, according to the security agency.

Agency officials, members of the FBI and others have publicly said the threat of these attacks has grown considerably since the pandemic, as criminals deploy malicious software — “phishing” — in fake emails and spam, and gain access to systems