SEYMOUR — Schneck Medical Center is still working to fully restore its email system and internet service after being hit with a cyberattack nearly two months ago.
Schneck officials said the hospital’s internal email system and internet service had yet to be fully restored. On Sept. 29, the hospital, located at 411 W. Tipton Street in Seymour, said it had learned that it was the victim of a cyberattack that “affected organizational operations.”
In response, hospital officials suspended access to all IT applications “out of an abundance of caution” and “third-party security partners” began working to restore operations as soon as possible, the hospital said in a statement at the time.
Within 10 days, Schneck had restored “some computer operations” but were still “working system by system” to restore computer operations as part of a “thorough evaluation” of its systems, according to Becker’s Health IT.
However, that evaluation was still ongoing, with hospital officials being “very cautious,” said Stephanie Furlow, director of marketing at Schneck.
“Internally, we don’t have our email up yet,” Furlow said. “…But within a week, our patient health records were back up. All of our patient-care systems are back up. So right now we are just waiting for our email system to come back up and internet.”
“We do have (internet) hot spots that we’re working off of, but our system-wide internet has not been brought back online as of yet,” Furlow added. “They’re being very very cautious as you can imagine.”
The cyberattack targeting Schneck came as attacks targeting the healthcare sector have spiked during the pandemic, with the FBI and two other federal agencies warning last year that they “had credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers.”
The threats included data theft and ransomware attacks, which is when hackers gain access to sensitive data and threaten to publish it or block access to it unless a ransom payment is made.
The cyberattack against Schneck was one of several that have struck hospitals in the Columbus area in recent months.
In August, “sophisticated cyber criminals” penetrated Eskenazi Health’s computer systems and stole the personal and health care data of patients and employees, the hospital said in a statement Oct. 1. The attack resulted in the hospital diverting ambulances to other facilities.
Some of that data, the hospital said, was posted on the dark web — including names, dates of birth, addresses, medical diagnoses, Social Security numbers, passport numbers, facial images, credit card information, among other information, the statement said.
In October, Johnson Memorial Health was hit with a cyberattack that resulted in the disabling of its computer system, forcing staff to fill out patient records on paper, cutting off electronic communication with other healthcare agencies and preventing the hospital from being able to report staffing and bed counts in real time to local emergency medical providers, The Franklin Daily Journal reported.
Columbus Regional Health, which has not been the victim of a cyberattack, has been on high alert and saw a “record number of attempts” to breach its computer systems in September, said CRH spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue in a previous interview.
Furlow said the cyberattack against Schneck was still under investigation. The hospital previously said “these types of situations take time to fully resolve.”
