Hospital struggles to restore MyChart months after cyberattack

Hospital struggles to restore MyChart months after cyberattack unknown

Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago is still trying to restore its MyChart patient portal two months after a cyberattack took its systems offline.

The children's hospital said March 29 that patients using MyChart to view their health records may still encounter incomplete information for a "limited time." Lurie Children's said it has been updating the patient portal with data it gathered during the outage.

The organization was struck by a "known criminal threat actor" and disconnected its IT and phone systems Jan. 31. A hacking group later claimed it sold the hospital's data for $3.4 million.

Lurie Children's has since restored its phones, email and EHR, but has been working to reinstate MyChart for weeks.

Disruptions from cyberattacks can "linger for several months or a year," American Hospital Association cybersecurity chief John Riggi told Becker's for a March story. "And legacy systems that may not have been backed up or destroyed during the attack may become totally unrecoverable."

The children's hospital said it would provide further updates as it has more information.