By Dan Hounsell

Healthcare is one of the industries most affected by tracked ransomware incidents, second only to education, and the impact of ransomware on bottom lines — the average initial ransomware demand was $4,583,090, according to a recent report — is bringing more scrutiny on the need for strong healthcare IT defenses.

In the latest ransomware incident, a growing list of hospitals and health systems across the United States are reporting data breaches linked to a ransomware attack on CaptureRx, a San Antonio, Texas, health IT company that helps hospitals manage their 340B drug programs, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. 

Among them:

• Faxton St. Luke's Healthcare, an affiliate of Utica, N.Y.-based Mohawk Valley Health System, has begun notifying more than 17,000 patients that their protected health information had been exposed in the CaptureRx breach.
• CaptureRx said it discovered unusual activity in some files on its IT systems in February. The files contained protected health information of patients at Faxton St. Luke's and other providers.