Brockton Hospital impacted by system-wide cyber attack, services cancelled, patients diverted

BROCKTON, MASS. (WHDH) - Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital is responding to a cybersecurity incident that has affected certain information systems within their health system, the company said Monday.

Signature Healthcare said it identified suspicious activity in a portion of their network, and activated incident response protocols.

In a statement, Signature Healthcare said, “We moved to down-time procedures to ensure high-quality patient care and safety. We are working with outside resources to help us investigate the incident and restore operations as quickly as possible.”

Signature Healthcare said so far, there is no indication that any data has been compromised as crews work to restore systems.

“The hospital is a victim of a crime, a cybersecurity incident means that they were hacked,” said Robert Siciliano, a cybersecurity consultant. “Money is generally the motivation of most cybersecurity breaches we see today. Organized crime has taken cybersecurity as one of their primary methods of doing business, so to speak. They are making billions and billions of dollars a year.”

Ambulance traffic is being diverted as the issue persists.

The company said inpatient and walk-in emergency services remain open, and surgeries and procedures such as endoscopy are continuing as scheduled.

Signature Healthcare said chemotherapy infusion services for cancer patients are cancelled on Tuesday, and patients should call the Greene Cancer Center to reschedule their treatments.

The company’s retail pharmacies at 110 Liberty Street, Brockton and 1 Donalds Way, East Bridgewater will also be closed on Tuesday.

It said ambulatory physician practices and urgent care practices will be open Tuesday, but patients may experience some delays.

Siciliano said protecting patients is the most important thing.

“By moving to paper, they are successfully managing the digital health of their employees to ensure that despite the technical friction, that patient safety remains the one variable that isn’t compromised,” Siciliano said. “They are looking at IP addresses, map addresses, and also looking deeper into their own network to make sure, before they go back online, they are properly protected.”

The hospital said it does not yet know when its systems will be back online, but it is working with law enforcement and cybersecurity experts to restore operations as quickly as possible.