OneBlood, a nonprofit blood donation center serving the Southeastern U.S., experienced a significant ransomware attack on July 31, 2024, leading to a major IT systems outage.

This cyber attack has disrupted blood product shipments to over 250 hospitals across Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

In response to the supply disruption, hospitals have been instructed to implement critical blood shortage protocols.

OneBlood has called for urgent donations, particularly of O Positive, O Negative, and platelet blood types, to help mitigate the crisis.

As the organization works to restore full system functionality, surgeries and treatments have been impacted in several states.

Due to the attack, OneBlood has shifted to manual processes for blood supply management, which are significantly more time-consuming.

Currently, OneBlood is unable to estimate when operations will return to normal as they continue to assess the situation.

The organization is collaborating with local and federal agencies, as well as cybersecurity specialists, to investigate the attack and assess its extent.

OneBlood has committed to informing all individuals impacted by the attack and will provide credit monitoring services to protect against potential data exploitation.

Federal, state, and local agencies have begun assisting OneBlood in managing the crisis and restoring operations.

Healthcare organizations like OneBlood are frequent targets for cyberattacks due to their sensitive data and often limited budgets for cybersecurity.

Details about the attackers have not been disclosed yet, but ransomware groups typically encrypt victims' systems and demand ransoms.