TTUHSU IT outage due to ‘cybersecurity event’
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Officials with Texas Tech Health El Paso said the information technology outage they have been experiencing is the result of a "cybersecurity event."
ABC-7 has been reporting on the IT outage for the past few weeks.
In a statement Tuesday, officials said:
"Texas Tech Health El Paso recently identified information technology issues that resulted in a temporary disruption to our computer systems and applications. Upon learning of the issues, we began an investigation and took steps to ensure the security of the Texas Tech Health El Paso network. While our investigation into the issues is ongoing, we recently confirmed the source of the disruption is the result of a cybersecurity event. We are working diligently with our internal and external partners to restore our systems, services and applications to secure full functionality, as quickly as possible.
Texas Tech Health El Paso appreciates your patience and understanding as we work to respond to this issue. At this time, there will be no further comment from Texas Tech Health El Paso until the investigation has been completed."
ABC-7 spoke with Deepak Tosh, an Associate Professor in UTEP's Computer Science Department, about the increase and impact of cybersecurity events.
"Since everything is now connected to internet, it's pretty easy for adversaries to kind of navigate through. With this boom of AI, creating exploits or attacks are even becoming easier," Tosh said.
"If an adversary can actually get hold of some of those assets and they can actually get to know the inner details of the patients, they can actually probably control some of those, you know, equipment and that, that might actually backfire into, into our, our society," he added.
But Tosh said there are measures that can be taken to help prevent these types of events from happening.
Individuals can protect themselves by practicing caution with, and reporting suspicious messages. Tosh also said educating yourself about cybersercurity is very important.
Institutions can take safety a step further by having a cybersecurity plan in place. Tosh said that should include managing and revising access lists frequently, and making sure security systems are always up to date.
