Hospitals in the region released an update on November 2, 2023 about the ongoing cyberattack.
Here is the full statement:
“Bluewater Health, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Erie Shores HealthCare, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and Windsor Regional Hospital, and our shared service provider TransForm Shared Service Organization, were recently the victims of a ransomware attack that impacted operations as well as certain patient, employee and professional staff data. We have become aware that data connected to the cyber incident has been published. We are reviewing the data to determine its contents.
Working with leading cybersecurity experts, we continue to investigate to determine the exact data impacted. Any individuals whose data was affected by this cyberattack will be promptly notified, in accordance with the law.
We are working closely with law enforcement – including local police departments, Ontario Provincial Police, INTERPOL and FBI – and we have notified all relevant regulatory organizations including the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner. Our leaders, on advice by our experts that we could not verify claims by the attacker, decided we would not yield to their ransom demands. We are aligned in this position with the governments of 50 nations, including Canada, who have recently pledged to never pay ransom to cybercriminals.
We continue to work around the clock to restore systems, and we expect to have updates related to the restoration of our systems in the coming days.
The hospitals will continue to do their best to contact patients directly in advance if they have a scheduled appointment with one of our hospitals that needs to be rescheduled. If patients do not need emergency care, we ask that they please attend their primary care provider or local clinic.
We understand the impact this incident is having on members of our community, including patients and our employees and professional staff, and deeply apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. We want to thank everyone for their patience during this time.
Due to the fact we have notified and engaged law enforcement as part of a criminal investigation, we remain limited in what we can say. We will provide more information when we are advised we are in a position to do so.”
We’ll provide more details as they become available.
