New York-based 70 bed Jones Memorial Hospital(JMH) has admitted that it is experiencing computer downtime due to a cyber attack on their main server. Hospital authorities say that the attack’s impact could vary and is yet to be analyzed.
Since this is a holiday season, most of the IT staff are said to be on a holiday. However, the hospital which serves all of Allegany County has succeeded in shutting down the server on time to emasculate most of the impact of the cyber attack.
Although the authorities are not prepared to disclose more details on the attack, some reliable sources say that the disruption could be due to a malware infection such as ransomware.
An official statement posted on the Jones Memorial Hospital says that no patient history or financial details were compromised in the attack.
A patient visiting the hospital during the holiday season said that she was asked to bring all past medical records along with her during her visit on Thursday. She said that the authorities have been cooperative and responsive during the downtime and were seen manually entering all the details on paper for digitizing them later.
As of now, the hospital is using standard computer downtime procedures which they regularly train and prepare for during disaster recovery situations.
The latest notification from the JMH says that all patients who have scheduled appointments for early next week should carry their medical records and diagnosis reports to ease the work of the doctors and the hospital staff.
Note- The above-said procedure will be temporary and might be rolled back by Wednesday next week.
