Ransomware Gang BYOD Disrupts UNM Health Sciences Center, Forces Hospital System Shutdown
What Happened — On Monday, a ransomware group identifying itself as “BYOD” launched an attack against the University of New Mexico’s Health Sciences Center (HSC), which includes the university’s hospitals, medical school, and biomedical research facilities. The intrusion crippled clinical and administrative systems, forcing the diversion of ambulances, the cancellation of dozens of outpatient surgeries and appointments, and the suspension of classes at the medical school. The attackers claimed to have exfiltrated patient and employee data and threatened to destroy it if victims engaged with them. UNM restored all systems by Wednesday without paying a ransom, and issued a public warning urging staff, students, patients, and community members not to respond to any communications from the hackers.
Why It Matters for Trust & Control Assurance — The incident underscores the need for robust incident‑response controls and continuous security‑awareness training to mitigate ransomware‑related scams.
Who Is Affected – Academic medical centers, hospital networks, and related health‑care service providers.
Recommended Actions – Review and test your incident‑response plan, verify that offline, immutable backups exist, and reinforce security‑awareness training focused on ransomware‑related social‑engineering tactics.
Technical Notes – Attack vector: ransomware malware (likely delivered via phishing or compromised credentials). No specific CVE disclosed. Data types potentially exposed: protected health information (PHI) and employee personally identifiable information (PII). Source: https://therecord.media/new-mexico-cyberattack-hospital