Cyberattack forces New York State hospital to run on downtime procedures

Bradley BarthDecember 28, 2017

A cyberattack disrupted computer systems at Jones Memorial Hospital (JMH) in Wellsville, N.Y. on Thursday, the Buffalo-area health care facility has announced on its website.

While the hospital did not state the nature of the incident, the circumstances sound similar to previous ransomware attacks against health care providers. According to the hospital, patient financial or medical information did not appear to be compromised, but a “limited number of our information services” were rendered inoperable.

In response, the hospital enacted computer downtime procedures, including manually entering patients' information into their medical charts. “We are asking patients using JMH services or clinics to bring their complete medications list and any available medical history with them to any visits,” the hospital noted.

JMH said its IT staffer was working with the University of Rochester, Noyes Health and St. James Mercy Hospital to restore its systems.

Bradley Barth

As director of multimedia content strategy at CyberRisk Alliance, Bradley Barth develops content for online conferences, webcasts, podcasts video/multimedia projects — often serving as moderator or host. For nearly six years, he wrote and reported for SC Media as deputy editor and, before that, senior reporter. He was previously a program executive with the tech-focused PR firm Voxus. Past journalistic experience includes stints as business editor at Executive Technology, a staff writer at New York Sportscene and a freelance journalist covering travel and entertainment. In his spare time, Bradley also writes screenplays.

cyber threat risk management , malware and virus prevention , security awareness

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