Cyber attack shuts down South Florida-based diagnostic imaging firm | #ransomware | #cybercrime

PLANTATION — Akumin, a large South Florida-based outpatient diagnostic imaging services company, has been hit with a ransomware attack that has compromised the health information of hundreds of thousands of patients.

Along with imaging, the company headquartered in Plantation performs medical scans as well as radiology and oncology services for about 1,000 hospitals, health systems and physicians groups in 48 states, according to its website. In Florida it has offices in the South, West, Central and North areas of the state.

Akumen first noticed suspicious activity on Oct. 11 and shut down its computer systems. The imaging centers immediately turned away patients and stopped scheduling appointments in eight states, including as many as 50 locations in Florida. As of Tuesday, the centers still were not operating, leaving patients unable to get scans and doctors unable to see images for diagnosis.

“We have temporarily postponed most of our clinical and diagnostic operations until we can restore our systems in a safe and secure manner,” Akumin said on its website. “Access to certain imaging results from prior years may be currently unavailable.”

Danielle Fine of Davie had desperately tried to make an imaging appointment at Akumin for more than week. She had a hip MRI at Akumin a year ago and, in pain, she wanted another to compare to see if it had worsened. “Whatever location I tried, I kept getting a message that their systems were down and they are not accepting appointments. When I tried nearby centers, they were booked for weeks.”

Fine said not only is she concerned about her health and financial information falling into the wrong hands, she also worries about getting access to her medical history from Akumin. “Will there be a way to recreate my health file?”

Jeffrery White with Akumin investor relations said as soon as the company discovered suspicious activity it launched an investigation, hired cybersecurity advisers, and notified law enforcement.

“Based on the investigation to date, it appears likely that the attacker accessed files containing personal data, including Protected Health Information. We will notify any affected individuals in accordance with legal obligations. Investigations of this nature take time, and we appreciate the continued patience of all of our valued stakeholders,” White said in a written statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

“A lot of things have to go wrong for Akumin’s system to be down since Oct. 11,” said cybersecurity expert Alan Crowetz, owner of Infostream in West Palm Beach.

Crowetz said ransomware typically scrambles information in a system and renders it unusable, with the attacker offering to release a program to fix the damage for a fee. All it takes is one employee to open a file that begins the damage. Many companies protect themselves from network security breaches, but plenty remain vulnerable, he said.

For the system to be down nearly two weeks, “either (Akumin) didn’t catch it quickly enough, or they didn’t have backups, or the ransomware encrypted the back up system as well,” Crowetz said. “Medical imaging files are big, so even if if they can recover them, it takes longer.”