Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) has taken its IT methods offline and suspended non-emergency procedures following a late Thursday cyberattack.

Whereas all its community methods have been taken on-line, TMH says this assault solely impacted a few of them.

Sufferers who require emergency medical companies (EMS) may even be diverted to different hospitals, as TMH will solely settle for Degree 1 traumas from its quick service space.

“Our IT Division detected this safety challenge early and proactively shut down our IT methods to restrict the impression,” TMH mentioned in an announcement issued on Friday.

“We’re reviewing every of our IT methods now, prioritizing them and bringing them again on-line one-by-one. We don’t at the moment have a timeline for the way lengthy this may take as that is an rising state of affairs, however we are going to proceed to supply updates.”

The regional hospital added that sufferers whose appointments have been affected as a result of this safety breach could be contacted by their suppliers or care services.

See our 12 pm replace beneath. We may even proceed to put up updates on https://t.co/UGsradFmx8. pic.twitter.com/pn1KWWy8Vz

— Tallahassee Memorial (@TMHFORLIFE) February 3, 2023

“Affected person security stays our number-one precedence. We apologize for any inconvenience or delays. We are going to present further updates as they turn into out there,” TMH mentioned.

“Our group is following present protocols for system downtime and taking steps to attenuate the disruption.”

The hospital reported the incident to regulation enforcement after the breach was found and is now working with them as a part of an ongoing investigation.

TMH is a personal and not-for-profit healthcare system that serves a 21-county area in North Florida and South Georgia by acute care and psychiatric hospitals, a number of specialty care facilities, and 38 affiliated doctor practices.

Second suspected ransomware assault focusing on hospitals this yr

The incident is suspected to be the results of a ransomware assault, in keeping with native media experiences that cited inside data from sources with information of the state of affairs.

All through final yr, the federal authorities has warned about ransomware operations identified for actively focusing on healthcare organizations throughout the U.S.

As an illustration, the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers (HHS) warned of the Royal. Venus, Maui, and Zeppelin ransomware operations actively focusing on the nation’s Healthcare and Public Well being (HPH) orgs.

CISA, FBI, and the HHS additionally warned in October that the Daixin Group cybercrime group can also be attacking the HPH sector in ongoing ransomware assaults.

“That is the second suspected ransomware incident involving U.S. hospitals in 2023. Final yr, there have been 25 assaults towards well being methods working 290 hospitals,” Emsisoft Risk Analyst Brett Callow informed BleepingComputer.

Atlantic Basic Hospital in Maryland was additionally hit by a ransomware assault over the weekend, in keeping with a report from native information outlet WMDT47.