PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Leaders from HSHS and Prevea have confirmed that the ongoing systemwide outage impacting clinical and administrative communications was caused by a cyber attack.
Damond Boatwright, president and CEO of HSHS, and Dr. Ashok Rai, president and CEO of Prevea Health, appeared in a recorded joint Zoom video posted to Facebook on Friday evening.
“Trust and transparency are foundational to HSHS in how we provide care in our ministries, which is why I want to share with you some important updates on the situation, what we’ve learned so far, and progress we’re making,” Boatwright said. “Based on our findings, we can confirm this was the result of a cyber security incident.”
Boatwright said an investigation into the incident’s scope and long-term effects is ongoing, adding that the companies are receiving assistance from third-party experts and working with law enforcement.
Neither Boatwright nor Rai said whether patient data was impacted by the cyber attack.
However, Boatwright said the companies have “deployed additional security measures to safeguard our systems,” and “have not detected any further unauthorized access in our IT environment.”
Progress has been made to restore internal communication applications, Boatwright said, and the companies are “working nonstop” to fully restore the remaining offline hospital systems as quickly as possible.
“I’m extremely proud of how Prevea physicians and staff, along with our hospital partners, have responded to this,” Dr. Rai said. “I must also thank our patients for their patience during this time.”
Comments