Health care giant Ascension confirmed cyberattack impact

Health care giant Ascension, which owns 140 hospitals and scores of assisted living facilities, confirmed lost sensitive data for nearly 5.6 million individuals in a cyberattack that was attributed to a notorious ransomware gang, according to documents filed with the attorney general of Maine.

In May 2024, Ascension was hit with an attack that caused mass disruptions as staff was forced to move to manual processes that caused errors, delayed or lost lab results, and diversions of ambulances to other hospitals.

The filing revealed that nearly 5.6 million people were affected by the breach. Data stolen included individuals' names and medical information, payment information, insurance information , government identification , and other personal information (such as date of birth or address).

The US Department of Health and Human Services has ranked the breach as the third-largest health care-related breach of this year.