(KLZA)-- Community Medical Center in Falls City was targeted by what appears to have been a Russian hacker group over the weekend creating major issues for the hospital in Falls City.
CMC Chief Executive Officer Ryan Larsen told MSC News that cyber attack attempts are nothing new for the hospital, having to deal with hundreds of thousand of attempts per month. However, the Qilin Hacker Group, a Russian affiliated organization, was able to access some areas of the computer network, causing damage. While the total extent of the damage is not yet known, it appears the attack reached some of the business files and other areas.
Quick response has helped contain the cyber attack from doing further damage. Larsen says the hospital is having to take precautions and for at least a bit, adjust the way things are handled including going back to using pen and paper vs. computers.
Larsen said the computer system has been locked down, causing frustration for employees but noted you can't take a chance and utilize the computer system until the full extent of the damage is know.
Requiring a shutdown of the computer system has impacted at least for now, some services offered at Community Medical Center. Some appointments were canceled while others have been delayed. Ambulance services are taking critical patients elsewhere due to difficulty in transmitting images to radiologists to look at. Larsen expects a slowdown in some services will last most of this week.
What appears to be a bit of a silver lining of the situation, is that apparently, patient information was not compromised by the cyber attack. Outside experts will be contacted to verify whether or not patient information has been compromised. If other issues are discovered, people will be notified.
Regardless of how quickly the situation was dealt with and the system secured, CMC will be replacing computers and to make sure the corruption did not spread further than what has been discovered.
Computers are being rapid shipped from across the country to Falls City and CMC partners from Bryan Health in Lincoln has helped with computers.
So as not to take chances, an entire new computer network is being deployed at the Falls City hospital.
The Emergency Room at CMC is open and clinical staff is providing patients the care they need.
Some services and appointments were rescheduled due to the cyber attack.
