Florida Department of Health data published after RansomHub attack

The Florida Department of Health was hit by a ransomware attack in mid-2024 that disrupted its vital statistics systems, including the issuing of birth and death certificates, marriage and divorce records, and apostilles. Funeral homes reverted to completing death certificates by hand. The department later said it detected the intrusion on 26 June 2024 and isolated the affected servers.

The RansomHub group claimed the attack and set a payment deadline in early July. Florida law has barred state agencies and local governments from paying ransom demands since 2022, and the state did not pay. RansomHub then published what it said was about 100 gigabytes of stolen files on its leak site.

Reporting on the leaked material described workers' compensation records, lab and imaging results, signed medical release forms, prescriptions naming individual patients, applications to the state's Healthy Start program, scanned passport images and COVID-19 records, most of them dating from 2023 and 2024. Brett Callow of Emsisoft told StateScoop there was no particular reason to doubt that RansomHub held at least some of the data it claimed.

The department reported the incident to law enforcement and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. In late August 2024 it began notifying 729,699 people, saying the exposed information could include names, dates of birth, addresses, Social Security numbers, banking and credit card details, driver's license and passport numbers, medical and dental histories, prescription and insurance information, and passwords. Those affected were offered 12 months of credit monitoring and identity theft protection.