The Ascension health network, which has a number of facilities across the suburbs, announced it is investigating a cyberattack.
DAILY HERALD FILE PHOTO
The Ascension health care system is investigating a cyberattack and alerted patients that some operations had been disrupted.
On Wednesday, “we detected unusual activity on select technology network systems, which we now believe is due to a cybersecurity event,” officials said.
“At this time we continue to investigate the situation. We responded immediately, initiated our investigation and activated our remediation efforts. Access to some systems have been interrupted as this process continues.”
Also, “there has been a disruption to clinical operations, and we continue to assess the impact and duration of the disruption.”
Ascension said it has alerted authorities and is working with cybersecurity expert, Mandiant, to find out what happened and resolve the situation.
The Ascension network has 140 hospitals across the U.S. with multiple health care centers in the suburbs.
“Together, we are working to fully investigate what information, if any, may have been affected by the situation. Should we determine that any sensitive information was affected, we will notify and support those individuals,” officials said.
“This is an ongoing situation and we will provide updates as we learn more.”
In February, Lurie Children’s Hospital experienced a significant cyberattack.