UF Health Florida hospitals forced back to pen and paper after ransomware attack

On the 31^st of May 2021, UF Health Central Florida also known as UF Health suffered a ransomware attack that resulted them forcing two hospitals to shut down portions of their IT network to prevent further spread of the ransomware and to protect patient data. UF Health states that they first noticed the attack when the hospitals’ computer system starting to demonstrate unusual activity which led to the IT staff quickly shutting down multiple systems and areas of their network.

“On the night of May 31, UF Health Central Florida detected unusual activity involving its computer servers. Our information technology team is collaborating with IT experts on our Gainesville and Jacksonville campuses to investigate the situation and mitigate any potential risks.

The University of Florida Health is a healthcare network of hospitals and physician practices that provide care to countries throughout Florida. So, there were concerns that the ransomware attack could have disrupted the care of UF Health’s patients and personnel data about patients could be at risk. Although in UF Health’s statement about the incident, they stated that “at this time we do not believe any patient or personnel records have been compromised or shared.” And that they were in the process of fully restoring its system as its medical staff had switched back to pen and paper records until the investigation is finished and they have implemented their backup procedures so they can restore their systems.