Manatee Memorial Hospital has announced that there has been a ransomware incident involving potentially impacted health information, but the information does not appear to have been misused.
ESO, which is a third party vendor the hospital utilizes, reported a cybersecurity incident that occurred in September with additional information released on Oct. 23.
The impacted data likely had some identifying patient information but officials say it does not appear that any patient information was used.
Manatee Memorial has mailed letters to potentially impacted patients and is working with ESO to increase security measures.
Manatee Memorial Hospital is providing notice of an incident experienced by a vendor that involved our patients' protected health information.
On October 27, 2023, ESO notified our business associate it detected a ransomware incident.
What Information Was Involved: The affected data varied by individual, but it may have included personal information such as names, phone numbers, addresses and some sensitive personal or health information.
What We are Doing: Once our business associate learned of the incident, it launched an investigation into the matter and requested that ESO provide notices to affected individuals and relevant government agencies on behalf of our Organization.
More Information: You can learn more at the following ESO webpage: https://www.
We are committed to providing you with information about an incident that may have exposed certain protected health information and personal information related to the work we do with some of our customers.
We take the security of our customers and their patients' information seriously and want to provide all impacted individuals with information about the incident and resources they can use to protect their personal information.
On September 28, 2023, we detected and stopped a sophisticated ransomware incident, in which an unauthorized third party accessed and encrypted some of ESO's computer systems.
While we have found no evidence that impacted information has been misused, on October 23, 2023, we determined that some patient information was located on one of the impacted systems.
The impacted data varied by individual, but it may have contained personal information, including names, phone numbers, addresses, and some sensitive personal information and/or protected health information.
Beginning on 12/12/2023, we are mailing letters to affected individuals and while, to date, ESO is unaware of any misuse of the involved information, as a precaution, we are offering complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to individuals whose Personal Identifiable Information may have been impacted.
If you received a letter, your information was determined to be involved in this incident.
Upon discovery of the incident, we immediately secured our networks, implemented measures to confirm the security of our systems, safely restored our systems and operations via viable backups, initiated an investigation of the incident with the assistance of forensic experts, and notified the FBI. We value the safety of your personal information and want to make sure impacted individuals have the information they need to take steps to further protect their information, should they feel it appropriate to do so.
We have included more information on these steps below.
We value the security of the protected health information and personal information that we maintain, and understand the frustration, concern, and inconvenience that this incident may have caused.
We continue to build on our already substantial investments in cybersecurity to prevent an incident like this from reoccurring and protect the information entrusted to us now and in the future.
This Cyber News was published on www.mysuncoast.com. Publication date: Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:14:05 +0000