ransomware

While Ascension facilities remain open in Florida and elsewhere in the national chain, staff have to use manual processes they left behind some 20 years ago while the IT system remains down.

Andrew Witty's admission did not sit well with Senate Finance Committee members, who spent more than two hours questioning the CEO about the cyberattack and broader health care issues.

The cyberattack on a unit of UnitedHealth Group’s Optum division is the worst on the health care industry in U.S. history, hospitals say. Providers struggling to get paid for care say the response by the insurer and the Biden administration has been inadequate.

Akumin says it first noticed suspicious activity on Oct. 11 and the hacker apparently accessed files containing personal data. It stopped scheduling appointments in eight states, including as many as 50 clinics in Florida.

The hospital hasn’t been specific about the type of security issue that brought its computer network offline two weeks ago, but experts say the evidence points to a ransomware attack.

The health care sector has become the hot target for hackers in recent months, according to researchers at Symantec, a leading cybersecurity company that…