Major Mississippi hospital system takes services offline after cyberattack

Following a cyberattack that started last week, one of Mississippi’s largest medical systems was forced to shut down a number of internal functions.

New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama are both around an hour’s drive from Singing River Health System, which has dozens of clinics and centers along the Gulf Coast in addition to the hospitals in Pascagoula, Ocean Springs, and Gulfport.

The hospital system “detected anomalous behavior” on its network on Sunday, according to the local news site WLOX, and was coordinating with law enforcement to address the issue.

Officials revealed in a statement on Monday that the hack caused them to take several internal systems offline.

Major Mississippi hospital system takes services

“Downtime practices are still in place while we see patients. We are making every effort to give more precise information about the systems that will be offered and when they will be offered.

The medical system stated, “Our IT security staff is working around the clock to address this issue, but it will take some time owing to the magnitude of the problem.

To preserve the integrity of the systems throughout the examination, a few internal SRHS systems were turned off. The offline systems are being restored by SRHS.

While we conduct a comprehensive investigation, we came up with workarounds to allow certain of our commercial operations to continue.

A hospital spokeswoman declined to confirm whether they were dealing with ransomware or whether a ransom would eventually be paid.

They refused to go into detail about which federal law enforcement authorities were informed or when the systems would resume normal operation.

The spokesman responded, “All systems are currently offline,”.

When questioned about which individual systems were unavailable. The hospital stated that its MySingingRiver chart system was unavailable in a FAQ.

Officials at the hospital warned that patients might encounter delays in receiving lab test results and offered to fax documents to anyone who required them. Requests for lab tests are now process by their lab using paper orders, according to priority.

Clinics are no longer able to provide radiology exams as a result of the attack. Only hospitals are permit to do radiological exams, which, like lab findings, are handle using a paper system and will have delays.

With more than 100,000 patients a year served, the emergency rooms of Singing River Health System are among the biggest in the area.

Major Mississippi hospital system takes services

The system hospitals are just 30 minutes away from George County, which experienced its own ransomware attack last month. It’s unclear the two instances are connect. This year, hospitals have been subject to an unending barrage of cyberattacks.

A prominent hospital network with branches in several states was recently subject to a ransomware attack that compelled it to shift patients to other institutions and scale back operations.

Despite the fact that ransomware outbreaks and cyberattacks are rarely directly link to fatalities, many experts both inside and outside of government admit. That the extra minutes and hours resulting from ambulance detours do indeed result in lives being lost.

Protecting hospitals has become a top priority for the government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and other agencies. Leading the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to publish specialized guides on specific ransomware gangs. That have been known to target healthcare facilities.

During a recent security conference.

CISA Director Jen Easterly state that before a full-fled ransomware attack is launch, hospitals and schools. Already receiving timely threat intelligence, as they did with the Prospect Medical incident. CISA has already given this warning more than 600 times.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) beganMajor Mississippi hospital a new project on Monday, asking for suggestions for tested technology created for national security. But that may also be use in clinical care facilities, personal health devices, and civilian health systems.

According to Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. “The DIGIHEALS initiative comes at a time. When the U.S. healthcare system urgently needs robust cybersecurity skills to protect patient privacy, safety, and life.”

“Off-the-shelf software solutions now face challenges in identifying new cyberthreats and safeguarding. Our medical facilities, creating a technical gap that we aim to fill with this endeavor.”