A cyber attack has shut down the computer network at the Center for Health Care Services, Bexar County’s largest provider of mental health and substance abuse services.
CEO Jelynne LeBlanc Burley confirmed Tuesday that the company’s system was included in a larger-scale cyber attack last week that’s under investigation by federal law enforcement agencies.
It’s unclear how many organizations were hit by the attack or who was behind it.
The city of New Orleans made headlines recently when it suffered a cyber attack on Dec. 13 serious enough for its mayor to declare a state of emergency.
Hospitals, school districts, government agencies and businesses are increasingly falling victim to ransomware, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation describes as an insidious type of malware that encrypts or locks up valuable digital files. The perpetrators demand a ransom to release the files.
Burley said she doesn’t know whether the attacker demanded a ransom from the center. Because it’s part of a larger attack, she added, the FBI and the Secret Service are investigating.
She said federal officials called the center last week about the attack, and that the center’s techs isolated the threat to a single computer server. Burley decided to shut down the center’s entire computer system as a precaution. Administrators expect it will be back up by Thursday.
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“Now we’re in the process of bringing back our system,” she said. “We started at our larger clinics, and we’re bringing it up slowly and carefully to ensure that o ..
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