Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare

History

2023: Cyberattack collapse

On February 2, 2023, it became known that the American medical institution Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare was forced to redirect patients to other institutions and cancel all non-emergency surgical procedures after a cyber attack was carried out on the hospital.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Hospital is located in Tallahassee, Florida. The institution is one of the largest in the state, serving 21 counties in northern Florida and southern Georgia. Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare for February 2023 includes a 772-bed emergency hospital, a surgery center and an adult intensive care unit, a psychiatric hospital, several specialty care centers and more.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare cancels non-urgent operations due to cyber attack

Hospital officials told local media they had to shut down their IT systems due to a security issue. Hospital officials said the hospital had developed protocols for system downtime designed to minimize outages and noted that the IT department quickly detected the attack before proceeding to fix it. Representatives of Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare did not respond to a request for comment on the nature of the cyberattack, but sources related to the situation told Florida Politics that the attack is related to a ransomware virus for ransom.

We are also redirecting patients for admission and will only accept Level 1 injuries from our immediate care area. All non-emergency surgical and outpatient procedures were canceled and rescheduled. Due to this problem, we postponed the admission of patients in non-emergency cases. Patients will be contacted directly by their doctors and/or medical facilities if their admission is subject to adjustment, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Hospital said in a statement.

While there has been debate since 2015 about whether ransomware attacks ON on hospitals can be directly linked to deaths, several experts said the incidents dating back to 2018 are undeniable evidence that these attacks cause significant and tangible real damage to hospitals and ordinary citizens.^[1]

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