Hunters International ransomware group claims major cyber attack on Seattle's cancer hospital

Seattle-based healthcare provider Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center said it suffered a significant cyber attack that involved threat actors stealing and leaking the sensitive personal information of patients and staff.

Earlier this month, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center said it identified unauthorised activity in its internal network on November 19 and immediately launched an internal investigation with assistance from third party cyber security experts to understand the nature and scope of the activity. The healthcare provider also notified federal law enforcement authorities about the incident and took steps to “contain the incident.”

“We immediately quarantined the impacted servers, notified federal law enforcement, and engaged a leading forensic security firm to investigate the incident and confirm the security of our systems,” Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center said.

“As a protective measure, we proactively took our clinical network offline and implemented additional information technology security protocols. We have also implemented additional defensive tools and increased monitoring to protect our data,” the healthcare provider added.

Fred Hutch added that while its investigation is still ongoing, it has kept all its clinics open to serve patients. It also added that the UW Medicine system, Epic system, MyChart and study or sponsor data wasn’t affected by the data security incident.

The infamous Hunters International ransomware group recently claimed responsibility for the cyber attack on Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and added it as a victim on its data leak site.

According to screenshots shared on X by cybersecurity firm VenariX, the ransomware group claims to be in possession of 533.1 GB of data containing 711,627 files stolen from the healthcare facility and intends to publish the same unless its ransom demands aren’t met.

The Seattle Times reported that several former and current Fred Hutch patients and some who received care from Hutch partner UW Medicine received emails from the hacker group stating that it is in possession of sensitive personal information of more than 800,000 patients, including their names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, medical history, lab results and insurance history.

“If you are reading this, your data has been stolen and will soon be sold to various data brokers and black markets to be used in fraud and other criminal activities,” the hacker group told Fred Hutch’s patients, according to several emails accessed by The Seattle Times.