Montgomery General Hospital Suffers Ransomware Attack and Data Leak
Montgomery General Hospital in West Virginia has suffered a cyberattack that saw unauthorized individuals gain access to its IT systems on or around February 28, 2023, and deploy ransomware on or around March 1, 2023. The attackers gained access to certain servers, exfiltrated files, and encrypted data. Montgomery General Hospital engaged a third-party security firm to assist with the investigation to determine the extent of the breach and has confirmed that its cloud-based electronic medical record system was not affected. The exfiltrated files mostly contained historical data, including budget documents, cost reports, and vendor payments; however, some of the files contained patient information.
At this stage of the investigation, the extent to which patient information has been compromised is still being determined. The hospital has confirmed that notifications will be sent to affected patients ahead of the 60-day reporting deadline of the Breach Notification Rule and credit monitoring services will be offered to individuals whose Social Security numbers were involved. Montgomery General Hospital said it temporarily took its electronic medical record system offline as a precaution, but access was promptly restored and patient care was unaffected by the attack. A hospital spokesperson confirmed that a ransom demand was received for $750,000 but the ransom was not paid on the advice of law enforcement and due to the historical nature of the compromised data. The hospital’s investigation indicates the incident started with a phishing attack and the hospital is aware that some of the stolen files have been publicly released on the ransomware group’s data leak site.
The D#nut ransomware gang has claimed responsibility for the cyberattack and said it had entered into negotiations with the hospital, but lost patience and started to release some of the stolen data on its data leak site. A member of the group contacted DataBreaches and shared a link to the published data and the site confirmed the published files included employee data. When questioned, the group said access was gained by exploiting a Microsoft Exchange vulnerability.
The incident has been reported to the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights as affecting 500 individuals – a commonly used placeholder until the full extent of an attack is known.
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