Ascension healthcare takes systems offline after cyberattack

Ascension, one of the largest private healthcare systems in the United States, has taken some of its systems offline to investigate what it describes as a "cyber security event."

As a major U.S. nonprofit health system, Ascension operates 140 hospitals and 40 senior care facilities across 19 states and the District of Columbia.

It also employs 8,500 providers, has 35,000 affiliated providers and 134,000 associates. In 2023, it reported a total revenue of $28.3 billion.

"On Wednesday, May 8, we detected unusual activity on select technology network systems, which we now believe is due to a cyber security event," Ascension said.

"We responded immediately, initiated our investigation and activated our remediation efforts. Access to some systems have been interrupted as this process continues."

The healthcare organization also advised business partners to sever connections to its systems until told otherwise.

"Out of an abundance of caution we are recommending that business partners temporarily suspend the connection to the Ascension environment. We will inform partners when it is appropriate to reconnect into our environment," the nonprofit added.