St. Joseph Hospital owner says company targeted in cybersecurity incident

MANCHESTER, N.H. —

A cybersecurity incident that affected St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua stretched across its parent company’s entire organization.

Covenant Health said there have been connectivity issues since the cybersecurity incident.

The organization said the incident was “initiated by an outside group” and detected earlier this week. The company has facilities in several New England states.

“We have engaged best-in-class outside parties to assist us in determining the details of what happened and to restore full system access as soon as possible,” Covenant Health said in a statement. “We are working to provide health care services as normal. Patients are encouraged to keep all appointments.”

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News 9 Investigates learned that St. Joseph Hospital has diverted some ambulances to other hospitals. Patients needing certain scans have been taken to other facilities, and some patients reported having trouble filling prescriptions.

Cybersecurity expert Gary Miliefsky said health care providers have a lot of data that bad actors online can go after.

“It’s worth more to break into a health care provider than, say, an e-commerce provider, because personal records for e-commerce might have your credit card, but medical records go for 10 times the amount on the dark web – medical records, medication lists, allergy test results,” Miliefsky said.

Covenant said patients with questions should contact their provider’s office. The company said it will work to keep patients and the public updated.