Digital Forensics Dispatch

California Health Provider Closes after Patient Records Are Wiped

October 3, 2019

California based health center Wood Ranch Medical will close its doors in December due to a recent ransomware attack that deleted and encrypted the firm’s patient data, according to Health IT Security.

The attack occurred in August, when the clinic’s servers were compromised. As a result, all the patient data stored on the servers was encrypted including the backup hard drives. Officials determined the hackers responsible for the attack had hopes of receiving a ransom payment before unencrypting the data. A review of the systems showed the data was too heavily encrypted and ruled out data recovery as an option. Unable to recover the patient records, Wood Ranch Medical made the decision to close in mid-December. 

Wood Ranch Medical follows previous firms hit with a devastating cyber-attack. In a recent attack on Digital Dental, around 100 dental providers were unable to access health records for their patients for almost a month. In both instances, a digital forensics analysis showed no indication that any patient information, including names, dates of birth and social security numbers, were compromised. 

A history of ransomware attacks show their occurrence on the rise. A recent study has indicated that companies who suffer a ransomware attack are hit with an average 10 days of downtime with an average of around $36,000 in recovery costs.

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