Planned Parenthood confirms cyberattack as RansomHub claims breach

Planned Parenthood has confirmed it suffered a cyberattack affecting its IT systems, forcing it to take parts of its infrastructure offline to contain the damage.

Planned Parenthood is a New York-based nonprofit organization that provides a range of reproductive health care services, education, and advocacy for birth control. It is one of the largest providers of reproductive and sexual health services in the United States.

Martha Fuller, CEO and President of Planned Parenthood of Montana, told BleepingComputer that the cybersecurity incident occurred in late August and the organization is currently investigating its exact scope and impact.

"On August 28, 2024, Planned Parenthood of Montana (PPMT) identified a cybersecurity incident affecting our IT systems," Fuller said.

"We immediately implemented our incident response protocols, including taking portions of our network offline as a proactive security measure."

Fuller notes that the response of Planned Parenthood of Montana's IT staff was immediate and praised their ongoing system restoration efforts.

RansomHub claims the attack

The RansomHub ransomware group claimed responsibility yesterday for the attack at Planned Parenthood, threatening to leak 93GB of data allegedly stolen from the organization's systems in six days.

The threat actors published various confidential documents on their extortion portal on the dark web as proof of their claims.

Planned Parenthood listed on RansomHub's extortion site
Source: BleepingComputer

Last week, the FBI, CISA, the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a joint advisory about RansomHub's trend of targeting healthcare organizations, of which this is another example.

Regarding RansomHub's allegations, Fuller told BleepingComputer that they are monitoring the situation and have informed the FBI accordingly.

"We are aware of the RansomHub post, and want to assure our community that we are taking this matter very seriously. We have reported this incident to federal law enforcement, and will support their investigation." – Fuller | PPMT

Considering the wide range of reproductive and sexual healthcare services offered by Planned Parenthood, including access to contraception, abortion care, and hormone therapy, a data breach within the organization could have significant privacy concerns for patients.

As of yet, it has not been confirmed that any data has been stolen from Planned Parenthood's systems, and the investigation to determine this possibility is still underway.

Planned Parenthood previously dealt with a ransomware attack again in late 2021, when ransomware actors breached the Los Angeles department (PPLA) and stole private records of 400,000 patients.