Wright & Filippis, a well-known orthotics and prosthetics provider in Michigan, issued a press release yesterday about a cyberattack between January 26 and January 28, 2022.
While the press release is not specific about the nature of the attack, a companion FAQ indicates that the attack resulted in the deployment of ransomware. Wright & Filippis claims that their endpoint security detected and terminated the ransomware shortly after it was executed.
Although their electronic medical record system was not impacted, there was reportedly some unauthorized access to files with patient and employee information. For current and former patients, the types of information include name, date of birth, patient number, social security number, financial account number, and/or health insurance information. For current or former employees or job applicants, the types include name, date of birth, social security number, driver’s license number or state ID, and a financial account number in limited instances.
As is often the case, the press release asserts that the entity has no evidence of any misuse of the information. They are offering those affected some complimentary services and advice to help them.
To help prevent another incident, the firm has also implemented a series of cybersecurity enhancements, “including installation of additional endpoint detection and response software, resetting all passwords, and rebuilding affected servers.”
Neither the press release nor their website FAQ indicates how many people have been notified of this incident, and no report has yet appeared on HHS.
But given that this ransomware incident occurred back in January, did it ever show up on any dedicated leak sight? Wright & Filippis’s statements are silent on the issue of whether there was a ransom demand and if so, whether they paid ransom.
DataBreaches sent an email inquiry to Wright & Filippis posing four questions:
- What group attacked them?
- Did they negotiate any ransom demand(s) at all?
- Were any data irretrievably lost or corrupted by any encryption?
- Did any employee or patient data ever show up on any dark
web leak site?
No reply has been received. This post will be updated if answers are provided or if DataBreaches finds that this incident was leaked at some time on the dark web.
Update of November 23: DataBreaches received an email from Wright & Filippis’ external counsel. Noting that they were unable to discuss matters part of the ongoing investigation, they did emphasize that neither the EMR nor HR systems were impacted by the incident, and there was no permanent data loss at all. They attribute this to the entity’s endpoint security detecting the malware before it could spread to more than a limited number of systems. “Most importantly,” they write, “there was no impact on its ability to provide care to patients.”
The incident was reported to HHS as affecting 877,584 patients.