BREWER, Maine — Patient records at Northern Light Health were expected to go back online Monday, two days after the health system discovered several of its computer servers were compromised in an apparent cyberattack, a spokesperson said.
In an email from Northern Light Health, a spokesperson confirmed that the electronic medical record system went back online Monday afternoon.
"This has been a big job, and our focus, as always, continues to be patient safety and privacy," Karen Sanborn, director of public relations at Northern Light Health, said Monday.
Northern Light Health said patient records were not on the servers that were impacted, but out of an abundance of caution the network went into "downtime procedures," during which they switch hospital business to paper, while the situation was investigated.
“We discovered an abnormality in our systems,” Suzanne Spruce, a senior vice president at Northern Light Health, said Saturday. “We looked at it and out of an abundance of caution decided to bring our servers down.”
A day later, Spruce said a review of the servers has been completed to ensure their functionality. While the servers were being restored, the investigation continued into what caused the compromised servers.
The ordeal at Northern Light Health this weekend comes as worry grows in nationwide over the threat posed by internet hackers.
While the health system was grappling with the threat to its network, Air Force Lt. Gen. Marc Sasseville, the vice chair of the National Guard Bureau, was in Maine discussing defense tactics against cyberthreats with service members at the Bangor Air National Guard Base.
“People are quite concerned about cyber defense, as they should be,” Sasseville said. “I think the country has some work to do to defend our critical infrastructure at the local and state level.”
That task is of particular importance to health systems like Northern Light Health. According to the FBI’s annual internet crime report in 2022, hospitals and public health organizations have reported more instances of ransomware to the agency than any other sector of critical infrastructure.
While the source of the threat to Northern Light is not known, FBI director Christopher Wray testified before a congressional committee last week, warning that Chinese hackers are “positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc.”
NEWS CENTER MAINE reached out to Optum, the company responsible for Northern Light Health’s IT services, to learn more about their strategy for combatting cyber threats but have not heard back.