Nearly 270,000 People Vulnerable After Hackers Target Louisiana Hospital

The solely factor scarier than America’s privatized healthcare system is America’s privatized healthcare system getting hacked. Well, I’ve dangerous information—Lake Charles Memorial Health System in Louisiana has been the topic of a ransomware assault, probably affecting a whole lot of 1000’s of sufferers.

Lake Charles Memorial Health System is a hospital community positioned in Southern Louisiana that’s dwelling to 6 medical amenities with over 400 beds to supply care to the residents of the state. The hospital system introduced not too long ago that it was the topic of a ransomware assault this previous October, and has begun the method of notifying these concerned—a breach report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 269,752 people had been affected.

“On October 21, 2022, LCMHS’s information security team detected unusual activity involving our computer network. We took immediate action to contain the activity and investigate its cause. On October 25, 2022, we learned that an unauthorized third party gained access to our network,” the hospital system wrote in a statement published on its website. “The investigation determined that the unauthorized access to our computer network occurred between October 20 and October 21, 2022, during which time the unauthorized third party accessed or obtained certain files from our systems.”

LCMHS means that among the knowledge which will have been obtained embody affected person names, addresses, dates of beginning, medical document/affected person ID numbers, medical health insurance info, fee info, and data on affected person care within the system. In some circumstances, Social Security numbers had been additionally swiped.

According to Bleeping Computer, a hacker group often called Hive allegedly listed LCMHS as a goal on the group’s web site in November 2022 whereas claiming the hack happened on October 25, not October 21 because the hospital claimed. Hive isn’t any stranger to ransomware, as TechCrunch reported last month that the group has extorted practically $100 million from 1,300 victims because it was first noticed in motion in June 2021.