Lurie Children's Hospital health records, phone lines back up after cyberattack

Lurie Children's Hospital "making progress" restoring systems after cyberattack

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Lurie Children's Hospital said late Monday that it was making progress in getting all its systems back online, more than a month after a cyberattack at the end of January.

The hospital's internal phone records and phone lines have been restored, but the patient portal MyChart was still down as of Tuesday morning.

Lurie officials said teams are working around the clock to get everything restored.

The team at Lurie called their systems – as an academic medical center – highly complex and said the restoration process takes time.

Lurie officials said that before complete restoration, they must verify and test each system before it comes back online.

A cyberattack led the hospital to take its phone, email, and other systems offline on Jan. 31 – and has caused disruptions to its regular operations since then.

Last week, the hospital confirmed that officials were aware of claims that Russian hacking group "Rhysida" ransomware was behind the attack. Lurie added they continue to work with police and security experts and cannot share further details on the investigation.

A post on the ransomware gang's "data leak" advertises a price of 60 bitcoin - equivalent to about $3.4 million - in exchange for "exclusive, unique, and impressive" data from the hospital. It even gives an ominous time frame of "7 days to seize the clock."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said other healthcare institutions need to be alert.

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