Doctors and nurses at a premier Chicago children’s hospital may now access patients’ electronic medical information, more than a month after a cyberattack caused Lurie Children’s Hospital to take its networks offline.
More than a month after a cyberattack prompted Lurie Children’s Hospital to shut down its networks, doctors and nurses at the leading Chicago children’s hospital may now access patients’ electronic medical records again.
The hospital released an update on Monday, stating that its phone system is also fully operational.
Officials had earlier blamed the attack on a “known criminal threat actor” and stated that the hospital shut down its own phone, email, and medical record systems when the breach was discovered on January 31.
The scenario at Lurie Children’s Hospital bore all the symptoms of a ransomware assault; however, hospital officials have not verified or disputed the cause. Such extortion-style attacks are common among ransomware gangs that seek financial benefit by encrypting data, records, or other essential material and then demanding payment to return it to the owner.
The FBI has stated that it is investigating.
Hospitals become a tempting target for attackers who understand their reliance on web technologies.
Lurie Children’s treated around 260,000 patients last year.
According to a statement made on Monday, MyChart, a site that allows patients and parents to access medical records and send messages to clinicians, is still offline.
“As an academic medical center, our systems are highly complex, and, as a result, the restoration process takes time,” the statement went on to say. “Working closely with our internal and external experts, we are following a careful process as we work towards full restoration of our systems, which includes verifying and testing each system before we bring them back online.”
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