Cyberattack Forces Northern CA, Non-Profit Hospital To Turn Away Patients

According to local media, non-profit, NorthBay VacaValley Hospital is struggling with a systemwide disruption impacting its website and phone lines following a cybersecurity incident leaving patients in flux.

Linda Sperow, a patient of the hospital, attempted to contact the hospital Monday regarding the walk-in x-ray clinic. As the phones and website were down, she was unsuccessful and when she showed up at the clinic for her x-ray appointment on Tuesday morning, Sperow was turned away.  

Sperow was told by a staff member that they had experienced a cyberattack and the system outage left them unable to check her in or access her medical records.

At the time of writing, the hospital’s website is still not accessible. In response to inquiries, NorthBay VacaValley Hospital issued a statement to CBS13:

“Upon detecting this incident, we launched an investigation and engaged leading external cybersecurity experts to support our response. We are working diligently to restore systems as quickly and safely as possible.”

VacaValley Hospital is a non-profit hospital providing medical services to the residents of Solano County, California.

Jan Lovmand, CTO, BullWall:

   “Hospitals and healthcare organizations are particularly attractive targets for cybercriminals, and their reliance on technology to manage everything from patient records to surgical equipment makes them uniquely vulnerable. This is compounded by their limited resources to invest in cybersecurity measures. But with ransomware continuing to be a significant threat to these organizations, investments must be made to contain these attacks, eliminating the need to resort to a complete shutdown of IT systems, and healthcare services.”

This is yet another example of how vulnerable the health care industry is to cyberattacks. This is something that needs to change. And change now. Otherwise these stories will keep popping up on this blog and threat actors will continue to run rampant. And most importantly, people won’t get the health care that they need.

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