Blood donation nonprofit OneBlood is actively responding to a ransomware attack that is affecting its ability to operate and provide blood to hospitals at its typical volume. According to a notice posted on OneBlood's website on July 31, 2024, the company is operating at a "significantly reduced capacity, which impacts inventory availability."
OneBlood provides blood to more than 250 hospitals in Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
OneBlood is continuing to collect, test and distribute blood to hospitals at a reduced capacity. Due to these limitations, OneBlood urged eligible donors to donate blood immediately, with an urgent request for O positive, O negative and platelet donations.
The company said that the national blood community is rallying to assist OneBlood and hospitals in need. Blood centers nationwide are sending blood and platelets to OneBlood, and the AABB Disaster Task Force is providing national resources to assist.
The blood supply cannot be taken for granted. The situation we are dealing with is ongoing. If you are eligible to donate, we urge you to please make an appointment to donate as soon as possible.
Susan ForbesSenior vice president of corporate communications and public relations, OneBlood
OneBlood said it was working with cybersecurity specialists as well as state, federal and local agencies to respond to the incident. OneBlood said it was too early in its investigation to tell whether personal information was compromised as part of the ransomware attack.
"The blood supply cannot be taken for granted. The situation we are dealing with is ongoing. If you are eligible to donate, we urge you to please make an appointment to donate as soon as possible," said Susan Forbes, senior vice president of corporate communications and public relations at OneBlood.
Toby Gouker, Ph.D., chief security officer, government and digital health at First Health Advisory, suggested that the healthcare cyber community can look to the blood supply shortages during the pandemic and other past supply chain disruptions to predict how this incident might unfold.
"This is business continuity, it does not matter that it started with a cyberattack," Gouker stated. "Like Change Healthcare, the cyber incident launched a financial business continuity response. This is a resource continuity issue most immediately."
Gouker predicted that hospitals would postpone elective surgeries to conserve blood for emergencies and redistribute blood supplies where they are most needed, based on response efforts from past shortages.
As the event continues to unfold, healthcare cybersecurity experts have also raised concerns about how this ransomware attack will affect patient safety and hospital operations.
"Clearly ransomware has evolved from an annoyance to a potentially dangerous threat to human life. The attacks on healthcare have shown how little regard these attackers have for human life and safety," said Erich Kron, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4.
"In this case, the organization is able to fall back to manual procedures. However, even with that in place, not only is it significantly slower, but the potential for human error when processing the blood is naturally increased, increasing risk to patients who receive it."
Brad Marsh, RN, executive vice president, government and digital health at First Health Advisory, stressed the value of OneBlood's transparency during the incident so far.
"These entities are able to utilize their previously practiced emergency contingency plans to keep operations rolling with patient safety in focus," Marsh told TechTarget Editorial.
"But this incident should serve as a continued reminder that attackers are pinpointing our vulnerabilities and no one is immune."
Jill McKeon has covered healthcare cybersecurity and privacy news since 2021.
