Article content
Five Ontario hospitals affected by a ransomware attack last fall say they’re mailing more than 326,000 letters to notify patients whose personal information was stolen.
Article content
The cyberattack targeted Bluewater Health, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Erie Shores HealthCare, Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and Windsor Regional Hospital on Oct. 23.
Article content
The hospitals said in a joint statement that except for Bluewater Health, electronic medical records were not affected in the attack.
However, they said personal health information stored elsewhere on the hospitals’ systems was stolen and some of that data was published on the dark web.
Recommended from Editorial
The hospitals estimated that a total of 326,800 patients had their information stolen, but noted that some of those people may have been counted more than once if they were seen at multiple hospitals.
Article content
Patients who attended more than one of the affected hospitals can expect to receive multiple notification letters.
“This incident was complex and the data analysis took several months to complete,” the hospitals said Wednesday in their statement.
“This incident affected each hospital differently and we took great pains to assess every impacted file to ensure that we notified all affected patients.”
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
Patients whose social insurance numbers were compromised will also be receiving information about credit monitoring, the statement said.
The hospitals said they discussed their patient notification approach with Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner.
“To our patients, community and health-care professionals, we truly apologize for the inconvenience this cyberattack has caused you,” they said.
In addition to the five hospitals, the ransomware attack also affected TransForm, a non-profit group tasked with overseeing the hospitals’ IT systems.
The group previously said the attack affected hospital operations as well as certain patient, employee and professional staff data, but it did not yield to ransom demands on the advice of experts.
Share this article in your social network
