OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – More than six weeks after Prevea and HSHS hospitals were victims of a cybersecurity incident, the investigation into the disruption continues.
Kwik Trip is also dealing with a disruption to its systems.
Prevea and HSHS have slowly worked to restore their websites, phone lines, and other technical systems impacted by the August cyber incident.
On September 25th, when the most recent public update was released, Prevea said, “We are pleased to report that many of our clinical and business systems are back up and running.”
The statement continued, “Our goal is to return to normal operations as quickly, safely and securely as we can.”
While Prevea continues to work on restoring its system and services, Kwik Trip convenience stores and gas stations are dealing with an outage of their own.
“My wife likes a certain thing for breakfast in the morning that they don’t always have, so we’re in the habit of ordering it in advance. And I think it was Monday we noticed, oh it’s not working the way we expected it to and when we got there they confirmed, yeah things were down,” said UW-Oshkosh information systems lecturer, Michael Patton.
Kwik Trip is reporting a disruption to its systems. It says guests will see some challenges regarding the company’s loyalty program, product shortages, and promotional pricing. But, it is not confirming any sort of cybersecurity threat.
Patton says the Kwik Trip outage could have been caused by a piece of equipment simply cutting a cable or fiber optic line or something more sinister.
According to Patton, “We’re seeing all sorts of intense and increased cyber activity right now. I’m sure the events in the Middle East right now are having something to do with that. I’m sure the events between Ukraine and Russia are having something to do with it. China always has a say in all of this so, the fact that we’re seeing enhanced cyber activity nationwide there’s no reason Kwik Trip would be immune to that.”
Like Prevea and HSHA which shut down their systems to protect them for further damage, Patton says Kwik Trip could be doing the same thing as it deals with whatever caused its disruptions.
He cautions people not to panic when these situations arise and instead wait for the affected company or entity to remedy the situation.
“We shouldn’t spend our time thinking about who’s going to be next. We should spend our time and efforts thinking about what can we do to better protect ourselves. In criminal activity they’re going after the easiest mark, so the less you can be an easy mark the better off you’re going to be,” added Patton.
In the meantime, Patton suggests reward club members who have credit or debit card associated with their accounts should keep a close eye on their financial statements — something people should be doing all the time in this digital era.
