GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Prevea Health and HSHS hospitals have been experiencing a system-wide outage of clinical and administrative systems since Sunday, August 27.
The Prevea healthcare provider recently confirmed that the security issues stem from a cyber attack. Local 5’s Samantha Petters met with a cyber security expert who is not associated with the investigation at HSHS and Prevea.
James Overly, owner of Cyber Works in Ashwaubenon, tells us what kind of impacts a large organization or business can face when a cyber attack happens. “It affects thousands, tens of thousands of people, so we try to stay ahead of all of those breaches to protect our own clients,” said Overly, owner of Cyber Works.
Jennifer Timmer is a patient at Prevea Health who shares the concerns of many other patients and wants to know what the health systems are planning in terms of giving their patients peace of mind.
“As a current patient, to be honest, I’ve heard nothing, and I think that’s what’s the most shocking thing,” said Timmer. “And I understand you have to do something to keep on providing the care, but my immediate concern goes to what is their plan to move forward and how are you going to assure people that it’s not going to happen again because you learned from this process.”
James Overly also said that it’s important for businesses to put their clients first and be upfront about the situation rather than leaving them in the dark and causing confusion.
“I would say any company, large or small, that has a breach should let their clients know that there has been a breach so that they can actually protect themselves and take extra precautions on their credit cards, their banking information, and their computers,” continues Overly. “Sadly, most of these breaches are preventable simply by keeping updated, by putting in the correct procedures to block the bad guys from getting in.”
As the owner of a technology-based company, Overly stresses the importance of making sure companies and other individuals are taking those extra precautions and keeping systems up-to-date to avoid falling victim to a cyber attack.
Below is a list of Services that Cyber Works offers to help protect against cyber attacks:
- Antivirus-Monitored
- Antimalware-Monitored
- Ad Blocking
- Update Management
- Hardware Monitoring
- Cryptoprevent
Local 5 News reached out to the president of Prevea Health but has yet to hear back. However, pre-recorded statements last week reveal that main phone lines are working and patients are able to call to schedule appointments.
For more information, you can visit the Prevea Health website here.
