Incident Details
The patient data stolen in an August ransomware attack by the LockBit gang has been handed over to a New York hospital alliance by a cloud services company. The North Star Health Alliance, a hospital group, took legal action against LockBit in November to compel the storage company to return the patient data that had been taken by cybercriminals from the hospitals and stored on servers belonging to a vendor based in Massachusetts.
Incident
How Did the Breach Happen?
The data breach occurred due to a cyberattack by the LockBit group using ransomware.
What Data has been Compromised?
The security breach resulted in the exposure of confidential patient information kept by North Star Health Alliance.
Why Did the company's Security Measures Fail?
The security protocols implemented by the company were not effective in thwarting the ransomware attack, leading to the theft of confidential patient information by cybercriminals.
What Immediate Impact Did the Breach Have on the company?
The company faced immediate consequences due to the breach and had to take legal action against LockBit in order to recover the data that was stolen.
How could this have been prevented?
Stronger security measures could have been put in place to prevent this breach caused by ransomware attacks.
What have we learned from this data breach?
The recent exposure of data emphasizes the significance of implementing strong security protocols to safeguard vulnerable information from cyber attackers.
Summary of Coverage
The patient data stolen in a ransomware attack by the LockBit gang was returned to North Star Health Alliance by a cloud vendor using a legal strategy. This incident highlighted weaknesses in the organization's security protocols and underscored the importance of enhancing defenses against ransomware attacks.