Cookeville Regional Medical Center officials confirmed Tuesday evening that the medical center was the victim of a ransomware attack after reporting a “network security incident” on Monday.
“CRMC Information System (IS) recently began experiencing some unusual activity which created a technical outage on Sunday, July 13, 2025, that disrupted some of CRMC’s computer systems,” CRMC said in a press release Tuesday evening. “While the investigation is ongoing and will take some time, this appears to be a ransomware attack. Cookeville Regional notified federal law enforcement and engaged external security experts to assist us with the investigation and recovery.”
CRMC released a statement Monday morning reporting that an “unauthorized party gained access to CRMC’s network” and that the security incident originated from outside the United States.
CRMC said at about 10 a.m. Monday that the internet was down “to ensure the highest level of safety for the medical center. CRMC continues to be proactive as they investigate and will continue to communicate as details unfold.”
“Since discovering the issue, the IS security team has been working around the clock to restore the affected systems and services,” CRMC said.
“We greatly appreciate everyone’s patience during this process,” said Tim McDermott, CRMC Chief Information Officer. “The IS security team has been here 24 hours a day working. We take this matter seriously and we are working with outside IT experts to investigate the issue. This investigation is ongoing. At this time, we suspect that the outage was the result of a ransomware attack on our medical center. As we learn more information from our investigation, we will provide our patients with additional information as appropriate.”
In the statement released Tuesday evening, CRMC also said, “The privacy and security of every patient’s information is one of CRMC’s top priorities. If the investigation determines that any information has been accessed or acquired without authorization, CRMC will notify those affected as soon as possible in accordance with applicable law.”
CRMC CEO Buffy Key said, “There are many questions all of us would like to know the answers to, and those will be answered in time we do believe. Right now, I can share that our staff have been phenomenal in working to care for our patients. Patient care has not been affected by this outage even though technology, scheduling, etc. have been slow because of the event. Our team has stayed grounded in making sure we see patients and care for them. That is always the priority.”
