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320,000 patients impacted by Ransomware attack on the Premier Family Medical

 

Premier Family Medical, the physician group in US state of Utah, has suffered from a ransomware attack that temporarily prevents access to the patient data as well as certain systems. This ransomware attack has infected Premier Family Medical's computer systems and servers. Around 320,000 patients were notified that some of their PHI (Protected Health Information) was possibly compromised due to the recent ransomware attack.

 

Premier Family Medical, who operates 10 primary care, orthopedics and dermatology clinics in Utah, has released a breach notice (i.e. on Aug. 30, 2019) about the ransomware attack on their website. Patients who were treated in any of the ten Premier's Utah County locations that include American Fork Clinic, Eagle Mountain Clinic, Copper Peaks Clinic, Lehi Main Street Clinic, Mountain Point Clinic, Lindon Clinic, Orem Clinic, Premier Dermatology Clinic, Saratoga Springs Clinic, and Pleasant Grove Clinic are impacted.

 

The healthcare firm came to know about the incident when their staff has faced issues accessing the data from some systems. According to the breach notice on their website, Premier Family Medical has discovered that it was hit by ransomware, malicious software type that encrypted the victim's computer files, on Jul. 8, 2019. Generally, the hackers offer decrypting these encrypted files in exchange of a ransom payment. In this case, Premier Family Medical has not specified in the breach notice whether they had paid ransom demand.

 

Once this incident was discovered, Premier Family Medical has notified the law enforcement authorities as well as Department of Health and Human Services regarding this incident. In addition, the healthcare organization has engaged the technical consultants in order to investigate this incident as well as regain access to their systems along with patient data.

 

The investigation has determined that patient information was not compromised. But, the healthcare organization has taken the essential steps for restoring access to their systems and improves further the security of their systems.

 

"Even though our investigation has found no reason to believe patient information was accessed or taken, we are very concerned that this event even occurred and have taken steps to further enhance the security of our systems," said Robert Edwards, chief administrator of Premier Family Medical.

 

» SPAMfighter News - 9/25/2019

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