Cyberattack on state health department system continues leaving residents in the dark
TAMPA, Fla. - A cyberattack on a Florida Department of Health system continues to leave residents in the dark.
The department previously confirmed an outage to its Vital Statistics System, which is responsible for issuing important personal documents like death and birth certificates.
The hack has also reportedly resulted in the personal and confidential information of Floridians being posted on the dark web.
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"State level governments are often a juicy target," Chris Jenkins, a partner of Druid Ventures, said. "Mostly because they contain a lot of sensitive information, and they're generally not terribly well secured. State level governments are often not good with keeping up with technology."
Floridians who have been trying to access the Vital Statistics System are worried their personal information could be among the data compromised by hackers.
Ransom Hub hackers reportedly said the FDOH missed a deadline to pay a ransom.
"Florida has a policy against that, as part of their state regulations, so they don't," Jenkins said. "But then, that simply means the ransomware group will release that data."
Jenkins said once a system is infiltrated, it’s typically too late, and that the hackers have already stolen data. The FDOH has not been able to confirm what type of personal data has been leaked or how many people could be impacted.
"I would really hope that the state technology groups have some significant backups, clean backups of some of these systems, that they can redeploy back out and get things rolling again," Jenkins said.
Fonda Emard has been trying to get her mother’s death certificate for about two and a half weeks, but has no answers about when she’ll be able to get it. Now, she is also worried about her information or mother’s information being leaked.
"I'm scared," Fonda Emard said. "And I don't know when this is ever going to end."
"Nobody's given me any reassurance that my data isn't out there, that it isn't being used or something else," Emard said. "Because the last thing I need right now is somebody to steal my identity or take my mom's identity."
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Earlier this week, the FDOH said it’s working around the clock to get the "Vital Statistics System" back online. However, the department hasn’t been able to give a timeline for when it may be restored.
"I think it's probably time or even past time for states to start considering a bill of rights around state resident data that commits to a higher level of security and a higher level of care for the vast amount of data that they hold," Jenkins said.
Jenkins said this hack could likely lead to long-term ramifications, and even lawsuits in the future. He said the hack could also impact health programs like Medicaid.
There is also still growing confusion about how to obtain documents like death and birth certificates while the system is down. Amy DeForge, an administrative assistant at Dobies Funeral Homes, said she’s in charge of issuing death certificates for the five company funeral homes.
But, she said the state has tasked them with doing this manually.
"They keep changing it," DeForge said. "They like to reject things at the state, so we have to redo things. The families are calling. We have no answers."
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DeForge said the last several weeks have become increasingly frustrating. The FDOH previously said funeral homes have been instructed on how to issue death certificates offline, but DeForge said they are getting little to no guidance about how to handle the process.
She said the guidelines are also constantly changing. DeForge said they’re trying to visit medical facilities and state offices in-person to get these certificates processed, but she said they don’t have the manpower to do this.
"We don't have enough people to drop these off and pick them up," DeForge said. "And for this day, I just dropped off another packet that was accepted. But I had two other packets that were not accepted, so I have to go back and redo those."
She said she has a list of 113 people to issue death certificates for right now.
"I just wish they would give us a real time frame and tell us what's going on and stick to some procedure," DeForge said.
DeForge said she hasn’t been given any indication of when the system could be restored.
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