A suspected cybersecurity event has disrupted clinical operations at Ascension hospitals, according to a statement from the health care network.
Ascension detected “unusual activity,” on some network systems Wednesday and “responded immediately,” the statement said.
Access to some systems remains limited as the investigation continues.
“Our care teams are trained for these kinds of disruptions and have initiated procedures to ensure patient care delivery continues to be safe and as minimally impacted as possible,” Ascension wrote. “There has been a disruption to clinical operations, and we continue to assess the impact and duration of the disruption.”
Ascension is one of the country’s largest Catholic health care systems with 140 hospitals nationwide. The group operates 15 hospitals and 230 sites of care in Illinois, including Ascension Resurrection in Chicago and St. Alexius in Hoffman Estates.
The health care network brought in a third-party expert, Mandiant, to investigate the attack. If it is determined any sensitive information was leaked, those affected will be notified.
Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago took its phone, email and electronic systems offline for several weeks earlier this year because of a “criminal threat” from a “known criminal threat actor.” The hospital remained open throughout the outage.
A ransomware group that calls itself “Rhysida” claimed to be behind the attack and sold data from Lurie.
