SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - After a malware attack began affected Scripps Health on May 1st, the hospital still won't say whether patient records were compromised.
A cybersecurity expert told ABC 10News that the biggest potential threat is patient safety, not confidentiality.
"All this consternation about records is a little misplaced. Knocking down infrastructure that results in impacts like loss of life is a much bigger deal," said expert Mike Hamilton with CI Security. He is also the former Chief Information Security Officer for the City of Seattle.
He told ABC10 News on Monday that if patient records were breached, the impact could be devastating.
On Monday, a hospital spokesperson would not answer any questions related to the attack and referred us to last week's statement, explaining in part that it has a team working around the clock to fix the issue but as of now, there is no definite date or time for when the system could be back online.
Scripps Health has not said whether patient records were stolen.
Hamilton said that if such records are stolen from any hospital, the integrity of that information can be manipulated to extort or terrorize.
Hamilton said that if such records are stolen from any hospital, the integrity of that information can be manipulated to extort or terrorize.
"[Consider if my record] said, 'I'm allergic to like penicillin. Don't give me penicillin. It will kill me.' If that gets changed all of a sudden, people can die from wrong information in health records, and this has always been in the back of everyone's minds of what we're worried about," he stated.
Hamilton said that patients will need to make sure that their providers have updated, accurate health information. Beyond that, there's limited resources for credit concerns.
"It's just the [same] thing that happens all the time. [They provide] another letter that says they're going to monitor my credit for free and I should take precautions and do credit watch and fraud watch. That is all that can be done," he added.
The Scripps Health outage has prevented patients from accessing their online profiles. The hospital said it is still able to deliver care at their facilities using backup processes and that its urgent cares, emergency departments, and HealthExpress locations remain open.
