Firm returns stolen hospital data after lawsuit

A cloud-storage firm has returned stolen data to a New York health system that had sued to get it back, Information Security Media Group reported.

Wasabi Technologies turned over the data to Carthage, N.Y.-based North Star Health Alliance, which had also sued the ransomware group that stole it and stored it on Wasabi's servers, according to the Jan. 15 story. The health system, however, said it doesn't expect the LockBit ransomware gang to respond to the complaint so will likely drop it now.

"We filed a lawsuit against John Doe and Jane Doe, fictitious individuals representing the human beings who run the LockBit criminal syndicate, in order to have a vehicle for issuing a judicial subpoena: a legal request to the cloud-based service provider to, in effect, give us back the information that the bad guys — the LockBit criminals — were able to exfiltrate," David Hoffman, general counsel of Ogdensburg, N.Y.-based Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center, one of the hospitals hit in the September cyberattack, told the news outlet. "We were able to work with the legal staff of the cloud-based provider in order to get copies of that information back."

A Wasabi Technologies spokesperson told Becker's: "We're committed to complying with all relevant regulatory requests. It is our policy not to comment on ongoing legal matters."

North Star Health Alliance is investigating which patients were affected and what information had left its possession, Information Security Media Group reported. The health system said it will likely discontinue its complaint against the hackers as it has no idea who they even are.

"I have no expectation that LockBit will ever respond to the lawsuit. I'm not sure that they even know that it occurred, and I suspect that they just don't care," Mr. Hoffman told the news outlet.

Copyright © 2024 Becker's Healthcare. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy. Cookie Policy. Linking and Reprinting Policy.

 

Featured Whitepapers

Featured Webinars