Nebraska Medicine Falls Victim To Cyber Attack

Nebraska Medicine is the most comprehensive health network in the region, with two major hospitals, more than 1000 doctors and 40 clinics in the Omaha area. Earlier this week Nebraska Medicine experienced a significant information technology system downtime event. This downtime is the result of a cyber security attack.  Nebraska Medicine was forced to postpone many appointments and prioritized patients who have appointments or surgeries critical to their health and well-being. According to Nebraska Medicine no patient data has been deleted or destroyed. As of this time there is no report of Patient data being compromised. Law Enforcement have been notified and contingency plans are in place. Nebraska Medicine says normal operations should resume in a few days after the cyber attack. 

The statement did not include any further information about the attack’s nature, extent or origins. According to the distribution and event leading to the discovery of the attack. It seems that Nebraska Medicine has been affected by a denial of service attack. As this investigation continues Nebraska Medicine and other health institutions should seek to improve their Security Awareness. Training employees to watch out for suspicious links and always updating phone and computer software is essential . Nebraska Medicine should also improve defense-in-depth or layered security. Layered Security provides additional protection even after an unauthorized access is achieved. Even if an attacker is able to breach into the network.What they can access is very limited. Which is going to make accessing other data more difficult.