A major hospital network in New Mexico raced to fix a cybersecurity issue on Monday that forced it to send ambulances to other hospitals and left the state without an emergency department capable of treating the most serious injuries. TheUniversity of New Mexico Health Systemtold people not to show up at its main hospital in Albuquerque and canceled appointments at its more than 30 clinics. Itsaid it was workingto resolve the issue, the extent and nature of which was not immediately clear. The hospital network conducts about 900,000 outpatient visits and receives 100,000 emergency room visits each year, according to its website. It operates the state’s only Level 1 trauma center. Presbyterian Healthcare Services and Lovelace Health System, two other major healthcare providers in New Mexico, said they were coordinating with the UNM Health System, including taking additional patients. The UNM Health System said in a statement that its hospitals and clinics began resuming operations in phases later in the day. Multiple UNM Health System employees said they heard messages across their computers while working late Monday morning that claimed to have stolen student and employee data and patient information. A spokesperson for the health system wouldn’t comment, saying that the incident remains an active law enforcement investigation. FBI spokesperson Margot Cravens in Albuquerque said the agency was “assisting our partner” but declined further comment. The Associated Press left emails and phone messages seeking comment from the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and the Albuquerque Police Department. The incident comes amid growing concern about the security of digital systems that underpin essential services, from banking to medical care. Incidents affecting hospitals, including demands for ransom. have been going on for a decade, said Josephine Wolff, a professor of cybersecurity policy at Tufts University. Breaching a system to play a message on computers is pretty unusual, Wolff said. Monday’s incident, she said, shows “how much work we still have to do to get better at defending ourselves.” On Monday afternoon, at the main entrance to its Albuquerque hospital, employees in turquoise staff shirts sat on chairs that blocked the waiting room and told patients their appointments might be canceled. At a medical center in the Albuquerque suburb of Rio Rancho, two security guards at the entrance told patients arriving for appointments to reschedule. UNM’s Health Sciences Center, the state’s largest academic medical center, canceled classes Monday. 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Join this session to uncover your organization’s risk and learn a framework to manage AI access. Join as we bring together CISOs, senior cybersecurity executives, practitioners, industry experts, and other security leaders to share practical experience and examine the issues shaping enterprise cybersecurity strategy. Cequence Security has appointed Russ Schafer as CMO. Mona Harrington has been named Assistant Director for Cyber Integration at DHS. iCOUNTER has appointed Mark H. FitzPatrick as CFO. Where your developers sit on the AI adoption scale has a real impact on how you are addressing security risk.(Matias Madou) Contextual defense helps security teams connect the signals, anticipate what comes next, and stop threats before they escalate.(Etay Maor) As AI accelerates vulnerability discovery and exploitation, so-called virtual patching still comes down to defense-in-depth and strong application security fundamentals.(Joshua Goldfarb) - AI, supply-chain exposure, quantum computing and geopolitical conflict are testing security programs. Preparing for disruption must become part of day-to-day operations.(Steve Durbin) Agentic remediation is not an act of faith. We are talking about fixing known problems, not judgment calls about unfamiliar risk.(Nadir Izrael) FlipboardRedditWhatsappWhatsappEmail