Ohio (WOIO) – University Hospitals (UH) experienced a cybersecurity incident last week, a spokesperson shared Monday
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According to UH, the systems were quickly disconnected from the internet after unusual activity was suspected on UH servers.
University Hospitals says its continuing to investigate the incident with outside experts and are in communication with law enforcement.
Erman Ayday, a computer science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explained why cyber hackers might target a hospital system.
“The cyber attacks in general typically target high value targets and hospitals, government institutions are some examples,” Ayday said. “For hospital systems or for healthcare systems, it’s very common to have cyberattacks all around the world not only in the U.S.”
He said money could be a motivation for hackers or simply just to show they can do it.
“Hospital systems obviously keeps personal health information of individuals and this information is extremely valuable, this information can actually be sold on black market, in terms of data sets, it can be used for blackmailing and it can be used as ransom towards the hospitals,” Ayday said. “So, by hacking these types of systems sometimes hackers just lock down the entire system of the hospital and start demanding for some ransom which is called the ransomware attack from the healthcare institutions until they unlock their systems.”
UH says it has made significant progress over the weekend in restoring its systems to full operability.
Challenges are still being worked through as UH continues to work through the week.
Patients still cannot access MyChart, UH said, because there are challenges connecting the UH network at some locations.
UH said it is encountering problems with pre-authorizations, among other issues.
While it may be frustrating to patients, UH says it has teams of people working around the clock to address the issues and restore MyChart.
UH did not provide a projected day or time when MyChart will be accessible to patients.
The spokesperson said UH appreciates its patience and understanding.
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