Hospital network hacked
Reports have begun to emerge of a cyber-attack that affected hospitals in multiple states. Staff have resorted to paper records to continue working. Restoration could take weeks.
No leads on the attacker
As of the time this article was written, there is yet no known group, organization or company behind this attack. The FBI is involved in the investigation and figuring out who is responsible for this.
Test your DR plan
We harp on this a lot but it’s important – make sure you’re testing your DR plan regularly! With our DRaaS Platform, you can test as many times as you want, as often as you want. In the event you need to restore to the cloud because of a disaster, don’t worry about how much time you have! Keep your servers running in the cloud as long as you need while you investigate, recover and get back to normal working conditions. When you’re ready to bring things back on-site, we’ll be there to help every step of the way!
News > Cyber-Attacks > CA-General
by Kevin Wood
hackers shut down hospitals in multiple states
Hospital group at the center of recent attack
A cyberattack on Thursday forced hospitals in several states to shut down and divert ambulances and other emergency services to other hospitals.
The attack centered on Prospect Medical Holdings of Los Angeles which is based on California and owns 16 hospitals in California, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas. The attack forced PMH to completely shut down it’s national computer network, affecting all of it’s hospitals and clinics. Nursing and administrative staff were forced to resort to paper records, recording vitals, medication and other records solely on paper.
According to PMH, the attack was identified on Thursday and immediate action was taken to stop the attack.
“Upon learning of this, we took our systems offline to protect them and launched an investigation with the help of third-party cybersecurity specialists,” the company said in a statement Friday. “While our investigation continues, we are focused on addressing the pressing needs of our patients as we work diligently to return to normal operations as quickly as possible”, said a spokesperson for PMH.
While the White House is closely monitoring the situation, the FBI has already begun it’s own investigation into the attack and who is behind it. As of the time this story was written, no group or organization has taken credit for the attacks nor has anyone been identified as having orchestrated the attack.
As of right now, staff are resorting to using methods of recording information that they train extensively for. An important part of training for nursing and administrative staff is how to take care of your patients when you don’t have access to modern technology such as computers and digital medical records.
By using pen and paper records, staff can still continue doing their daily duties, albeit slower and less efficiently. Elective surgeries, outpatient appointments, blood drives and other services were suspended. Some emergency departments began to open on Friday but many primary care facilities were still closed.
Experts are saying that PMH systems won’t be fully operational until next week. This is due in part to the investigation but possibly due to a lackluster disaster recovery plan.
This is where Balance Business Group’s, “Disaster Recovery as a Service”, comes into play. By having the entire network setup in our platform, PMH could have initiated their “Orchestration Toolkit Plan” and set in motion the restoration of all of their servers in the cloud. Not only could they continue to work on digital records, instead of paper, but they could investigate what happened on-site while their servers run in the cloud.
By spending the time up front, our engineers are able to configure your personal “DRaaS” Platform to meet your IT environment needs. Even if you have a “finicky server” where your web app needs to be up and running before SQL starts up, we help configure that launch sequence and, unlike other disaster recovery solutions that simply take a screenshot to verify a system is back up and running, our Platform can check specific services and protocols to make sure they’re running before giving the green light.
Once your entire server environment is running in the cloud, you simply need to point your firewalls to the cloud endpoint and your company can continue working as usual while a root-cause analysis is completed.
Contact BBG today and let’s talk about what keeps you up at night when it comes to your company Disaster Recovery Plan. Let’s figure out your pain-points and how our DRaaS Platform can help you stay secure, stay backed up and stay running, even when the worst happens.
“Upon learning of this, we took our systems offline to protect them and launched an investigation with the help of third-party cybersecurity specialists,” the company said in a statement Friday. “While our investigation continues, we are focused on addressing the pressing needs of our patients as we work diligently to return to normal operations as quickly as possible.”
- Have proper backups
- Test your DR plan regularly
- Ensure you have a way to get up and running in minutes, instead of weeks
- If you’re concerned about your DR plan, or want to just find out how our Disaster Recovery as a Service Platform can provide value and reassurance to your organization, contact us today!