A ransomware attack hit critical non-profit blood center OneBlood, causing area hospitals to scramble to find other resources in fear of a blood shortage.
OneBlood, one of the biggest blood donation suppliers in the southeast, was hit with a ransomware attack on Monday that has crippled critical operations, including donation sites and blood unit labeling.
"This is truly an unprecedented event," said Susan Forbes, the senior vice president of corporate communications for OneBlood.
The attack is affecting more than 75 hospitals in South Florida, including hundreds outside of the area.
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"Processing blood is one thing, but then you have to label it," Forbes said. "Something that took 30 seconds to do before may take five minutes now. So, you start to add things up."
Blood donation sites are now manually checking potential donors in for appointments as they operate with reduced capacity.
The fallout is affecting major medical systems like HCA Healthcare, which said in a statement, "We are utilizing the resources of HCA Healthcare to evaluate alternative suppliers and provide clinical guidance to support our facilities and address our patients’ needs."
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“The cybersecurity specialists are analyzing everything and doing forensic analyses on what we’re dealing with, including data," Forbes said.
These attacks are only becoming more common.
"It used to be, you open up an email and it had a bad file attached to it. It’s getting much more creative than that. You can literally type into a website and mistype a word and get into a bad website," said TJ Spohn, a cyber security expert and vice president of CPT South Florida.
Spohn warned organizations to always have a backup system.
"It needs to be off-site, and it needs to be air gap so that you can then go back and restore those files," he said.
Meanwhile, there is a call for blood donors to help fill the gap left behind by this attack.
"Do not take the blood supply for granted," Forbes said.
OneBlood was not able to say how long their systems will be affected and only said it’s still under investigation.
Meanwhile, there is an urgent need to donate blood right now. You can still donate with OneBlood or another organization.
