In Ramsey County, MN the County Manager’s Office has begun issuing alerts to 8,687 clients of its Family Health Division ro make them aware that a portion of their personal information may have been illegally accessed by cybercriminals in a ransomware attack on one of its vendors.
St. Cloud-based Netgain Technology LLC is a technology services partner for Ramsey County and provides a range of services such as an application used by the Family Health Division for documenting home visits. Data held by this application may have been accessed and downloaded by threat actors before the ransomware was installed – a common tactic used by hackers. The application included data likenames, addresses, dates of birth, dates of service, telephone numbers, account numbers, health insurance information, medical information and, for a small amount of individuals, Social Security details.
The hacking incident seems to have been carried out with the aim for the aim of stealing money from Netgain as opposed to accessing to personal information; however, it was not possible to eliminate the possibility of unauthorized access or data theft taking place as well
Ramsey County was made aware of the the attack on December 2, 2020 and immediately stopped using Netgain’s services and applications and changed to backup processes. The attack has been made known to law enforcement agencies and steps are being implemented to enhance security to stop any more attacks from taking place.
Meanwhile, Cordele, GA-based Crisp Regional Health Services has been impacted by a ransomware attack on January 27, 2020 place a range of their systems out of use for the time being. The attack brought down the hospital’s telephone system and staff had to use radios to conduct internal communications. Patients and their family members were informed that they would need to make contact using social media while the phone system was beyond use.
Measures were put in place quickly to safeguard data and address the attack and third-party cybersecurity experts have been hired in order top help with the investigation and determine the extent and range of the breach, and whether the hackers accessed or stolen patient data.
The investigation remains current and additional details are expected to be made available as soon as it is available.
Crisp Regional Health Services’ community relations and foundation director, Brooke Marshall, commented “Workflow was never compromised, patient care was never compromised.”