JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Some patient data from the Jax Spine and Pain Centers has been compromised in a ransomware attack, the company says.
The medical practice has eight offices in the area of North Florida and South Georgia.
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The practice says the attack was on patient data files created before May of 2018 and recommends that patients who visited their Jacksonville or St. Augustine locations before then monitor their financial accounts and take action if they notice any unauthorized activity.
According to Jax Spine, the criminals threatened to publish the stolen files online unless a ransom was paid.
The practice says they took steps to prevent more damage when they learned about the attack and contracted the FBI.
“Hospitals and medical facilities store a lot of personally identifiable information,” explained Bryan Nelson, News4JAX’s assistant director of technology “HIPPA laws exist solely because it’s personally identifiable information that makes it really easy to take somebody’s identity. If you are able to get that level of information, then you can get that identity fairly easy.
Jax Spine says they have put more security in place to prevent this from happening again and that patient files created after May of 2018 are maintained in the cloud, safe and secure.