Two West Texas-area healthcare entities - the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center system and University Medical Center in Lubbock - are days into widespread IT outages, with UMC confirming it is six days into a ransomware attack.
While Lubbock's other major hospital system Covenant Health, remained unaffected as of late Tuesday, the impact of these technology issues is was impacting patients across West Texas and stretching to college campuses in Dallas, El Paso, Abilene and Amarillo.
When did the West Texas ransomware attack begin?
University Medical Center Healthcare System in Lubbock, a Level 1 trauma center, announced the outage at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26. The next day, the system confirmed it was being impacted by an ongoing ransomware attack.
"UMC Health System recently detected unusual activity within our IT systems," the center stated on its website. "Immediately after detecting this activity, our teams launched an investigation and took steps to proactively disconnect our systems to contain the incident. Through the ongoing investigation, we determined that the unusual activity was connected to a ransomware incident."
Ransomware "is malware designed to encrypt files on a device, rendering any files and the systems that rely on them unusable," according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. People who deploy the malware then demand money in exchange for releasing the files and systems.
Level 1 trauma centers have the highest surgical level capabilities designation. UMC is one of few across Texas, and the only one in West Texas.
While Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center confirmed an IT outage on Sunday, Sept. 29, it did not confirm if it was related to the attack on UMC. The center, which has campuses and clinics in Amarillo, the Permian Basin, Abilene, Dallas, and El Paso, has limited its operations.
What is impacted in the West Texas hospital ransomware attack, IT outage?
For TTUHSC, clinical operations were limited and classes were canceled on Monday. Texas Tech Physicians, part of the organization, stated the clinic's phone lines were down and TTP could not communicate with patients through the online portal.
By Tuesday, academic classes and operations resumed. Clinical operations and sites remained limited and would continue into Wednesday.
The center's website, ttuhsc.edu, along with El Paso's website, remained unreachable on Tuesday. The website for Texas Tech Physicians gave an error message, though the phone number for the Multispecialty Clinic is working.
When UMC first announced the attack, it diverted incoming emergency and non-emergency patients to other health facilities. Downtime procedures and accommodations were implemented to minimize disruptions.
The HIPPA Journal on Friday reported that the attack "affected multiple systems" at UMC, including the phone system. The report also stated UMC was unable to view messages in the patient portal.
UMC's latest update, issued around 6:30 p.m. Monday, stated progress has been made in restoring some services. Healthcare facilities remain open, including emergency centers and urgent care clinics. The Emergency Center was reopened to patients via ambulance.
"However, out of an abundance of caution, the Emergency Center continues to divert a select number of patients until all UMC resources are fully functioning," UMC stated.
UMC is investigating the ongoing issues and collaborating with third parties to restore operations.
Covenant Health System remains unimpacted by outage, attack. Here's what it is doing:
Covenant Health System, also in Lubbock, was alerted to the issue by UMC on the morning of Sept. 26. Covenant Medical Center and Covenant Children's assured they would be available to help. While UMC and TTUHSC remain at lower capacity, Covenant remains fully operational.
However, as the only fully operational system in Lubbock, it is impacted due to more people coming in. On Monday, Sept. 30, the system warned the public that wait times have increased at the Covenant Medical Center Emergency Department, even as high as 8 hours.
The system encouraged people to utilize the other Emergency Centers on Quaker and Milwaukee Avenues, which are open 24/7 and have shorter wait times. People should also use the urgent care clinics for matters including:
- Ear infections.
- Fever.
- Rash.
- Sore throat.
- Minor cuts and burns.
- Colds and flu symptoms.
- Broken bones.
- Sprains and sports injuries.
- Urinary tract infections.
- Mild allergic reactions or asthma attacks.
- Nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.
- Lab and x-ray services on-site.
Covenant's cybersecurity team is monitoring evolving threats and attacks.
How much is the ransom during the West Texas healthcare attack?
UMC has not said how much the ransom is as of Tuesday. However, the HIPAA Journal published a report with information from the State of Ransomware in Healthcare 2024 , from Sophos, a British-based security software and hardware company.
Out of the 155 health organizations Sophos obtained information from, the average ransom in 2024 was $4 million. About 65% of the demands were for $1 million or more, and the remaining percent was for $5 million or more.
The ransom is just part of the overall cost of recovery, and recovery time has grown. The report stated 37% of surveyed systems took more than a month to recover in 2024, compared to 28% in 2023.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: 2 West Texas healthcare systems impacted by IT outage, 1 confirmed ransomware attack.
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