A ransomware incident affecting computer systems at New York Blood Center Enterprises has forced the community-based blood center to take some of its systems offline, canceling some blood drives and curtailing activities at its donation centers, the organization said yesterday.
A blood drive scheduled to take place today in Riverhead at the Hotel Indigo is among the community blood drives canceled because of the incident.
“On January 26, New York Blood Center Enterprises and its operating divisions, including New York Blood Center, identified suspicious activity affecting our IT systems,” a blood center spokesperson said in a statement emailed to RiverheadLOCAL Wednesday evening.
“We immediately engaged third-party cybersecurity experts to investigate and confirmed that the suspicious activity is a result of a ransomware incident. We took immediate steps to help contain the threat and are working diligently with these experts to restore our systems as quickly and as safely as possible. Law enforcement has been notified,” the spokesperson said in the email.
The cyber attack and resulting disruption came less than a week after New York Blood Center and New Jersey Blood Services declared a blood emergency the organizations said had “crippled the region’s blood supply.”
New York Blood Center had seen a 30% drop in blood donations, resulting in 6,500 fewer donations during “a holiday season of alarmingly low donor turnout,” the organization said in a Jan. 21 press release. Donations of all blood types were urgently needed, with types O-negative and B-negative “down to a dangerously low 1-3-day supply,” New York Blood Center said in the Jan. 21 release.
The blood center remains in direct contact with its hospital partners and is “implementing workarounds to help restore services and fulfill orders,” the blood center spokesperson said in the email. “We remain incredibly grateful for the generous response of our greater blood community – including our hospital partners, hospital associations, blood centers across the country, the AABB Interorganizational Task Force, and our donors – who have all come together to help advance our shared mission,” the spokesperson said.
The organization posted a notice about the cybersecurity incident on its website late in the day Wednesday.
New York Blood Center said it does not have “a specific timetable for system restoration” and is “working diligently with third-party experts” to restore its systems as quickly and safely as possible.
The blood center said it is still accepting blood donations, though it acknowledged that donation center activities and blood drives may need to be rescheduled. It did not say which blood donation centers or blood drives would continue as planned.
A full schedule of upcoming blood drives still appears on the blood center’s donor appointment scheduling portal. The list still includes today’s canceled blood drive in Riverhead, hosted by Assembly Member Jodi Giglio, as well as three other drives scheduled to take place in the local area over the next week. New York Blood Center said in the emailed statement that updates to its website are slow and may not be up to date as the organization works through this situation.
“In the coming weeks, it may be necessary for us to do another push for more blood donations once we work through this challenge, and we will count on our community’s support,” the organization said. “If you’re eligible, we encourage you to make a donation, and we appreciate your patience if you experience longer wait times or unexpected scheduling changes as we work through this.”
New York Blood Center did not say whether any personally identifiable data was exposed in the breach.
It did not provide details about the incident. Typically, in a ransomware attack, a threat actor encrypts the owner’s data, cutting off access, and demands payment of a ransom to provide a decryption key that allows the owner access.
So far no individual or group has publicly claimed responsibility for the incident.
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