The Arkansas Oral and Facial Surgery Center has released a press statement yesterday which says that its computer network has been hit by ransomware and the malware could have impacted 128,000 patient records.
The press statement which is now available on the healthcare website says that the incident was discovered on July 26th,2017 and an investigation was rolled out on the issue on an immediate note.
According to the details available to Cybersecurity Insiders, the malicious software was installed on the systems by an unauthorized individual for extortion.
Authorities of the Arkansas Oral and Facial Surgery Center have informed this issue to FBI and also sent a report to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR)
The incident is said to have made the healthcare authorities cancel 60% of patient appoints for August and September as imaging files such as X-Rays, and other documents remained inaccessible due to ransomware.
An insider of the said healthcare organization has also revealed that demographic information such as patient names, addresses, date of births, and social security info, along with clinical info such as diagnosis, treatment plans or details about the condition of the patient was also compromised.
Thus, following the incident, the Arkansas Oral and Facial Surgery Center have decided to implement a new record system and has arranged for credit monitoring for its patients, for 12 months( from the data of the ransomware incident) at no cost.
Note- Ransomware is a malicious software which hits a database and encrypts the files on the database until a ransom is paid. In very rare cases, the cyber crooks, return back with a decryption key after a ransom is received by them in the form of digital currency. But in most cases, the hackers vanish with the ransom and do not offer the decryption key as promised.
