First on CNN: Cyberattack hits blood-donation nonprofit OneBlood

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN

(CNN) — A cyberattack has hit a blood-donation nonprofit that serves hundreds of hospitals in the southeastern US.

The hack, which was first reported by CNN, has raised concerns about potential impacts on OneBlood’s service to some hospitals, multiple sources familiar with the matter said, and the incident is being investigated as a potential ransomware attack.

An “outage” of OneBlood’s software system is impacting the nonprofit’s ability to ship “blood products” to hospitals in Florida, according to an advisory sent to health care providers by the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a cyberthreat-sharing group, and reviewed by CNN. OneBlood has been manually labeling blood products as the nonprofit recovers from the incident, the advisory said.

OneBlood serves hospitals in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina, according to its website. In a statement, the nonprofit acknowledged the ransomware attack and said it was working closely with cybersecurity experts as well as law enforcement. The nonprofit is “operating at a significantly reduced capacity.”

“We have implemented manual processes and procedures to remain operational. Manual processes take significantly longer to perform and impacts inventory availability. In an effort to further manage the blood supply we have asked the more than 250 hospitals we serve to activate their critical blood shortage protocols and to remain in that status for the time being,” said Susan Forbes, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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