Finger Lakes Health in Geneva, N.Y., lost access to its computer system March 18, and now, an outsider party is demanding payment to decrypt the health system's files, a Finger Lakes Health spokesperson confirmed to Becker's Hospital Review.
Around midnight March 18, the organization was notified of a potential breach, in which specific electronic systems were encrypted by a third party. Finger Lakes is working with law enforcement and security professionals to get the system back up, and officials do not believe patient or employee information has been compromised.
While it is locked out of its computer system, Finger Lakes caregivers have reverted to standard downtime procedures including paper charting.
"We immediately implemented our manual downtime protocol and procedures which we have practiced for circumstances when computer access is limited," the spokesperson wrote in a statement to Becker's Hospital Review. "We, like many other health systems and businesses, have prepared for this inevitability due to the increase in these types of incidents."
This is a developing story. Becker's Hospital Review will update this article as more information becomes available.
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