Health care giant Ascension says 5.6 million patients affected in cyberattack

Health care company Ascension lost sensitive data for nearly 5.6 million individuals in a cyberattack that was attributed to a notorious ransomware gang, according to documents filed with the attorney general of Maine.

Ascension owns 140 hospitals and scores of assisted living facilities. In May, the organization was hit with an attack that caused mass disruptions as staff was forced to move to manual processes that caused errors, delayed or lost lab results, and diversions of ambulances to other hospitals. Ascension managed to restore most services by mid-June. At the time, the company said the attackers had stolen protected health information and personally identifiable information for an undisclosed number of people.

Investigation concluded

A filing Ascension made earlier in December revealed that nearly 5.6 million people were affected by the breach. Data stolen depended on the particular person but included individuals’ names and medical information (e.g., medical record numbers, dates of service, types of lab tests, or procedure codes), payment information (e.g., credit card information or bank account numbers), insurance information (e.g., Medicaid/Medicare ID, policy number, or insurance claim), government
identification (e.g., Social Security numbers, tax identification numbers, driver’s license numbers, or passport numbers), and other personal information (such as date of birth or address).