Illinois hospitals drill for AI-driven cyber attack

ALTON, Ill. (First Alert 4) - Hospitals in Illinois took part Wednesday in one of the state’s largest drills to practice responding to a cyber attack led by artificial intelligence. The Illinois Health and Hospital Association organized the exercise.

Health care is the industry paying the highest cost from data breaches, according to IBM’s 2026 Cost of a Data Breach report.

Staff at OSF St. Anthony’s Health Center in Alton worked through what could happen and what they would do during an AI-driven cyber attack as part of the statewide drill.

The scenario involved a cyber group using AI to create fake communications from hospital staff and disrupt critical systems. It led to disruptions to communications, access to digital records and AI-generated changes to connected systems.

OSF St. Anthony EMS Coordinator and Emergency Management Preparedness Coordinator Olivia Walker said the hospital chose to take part because it’s a situation that requires preparation should something happen.

Walker said, “Our hospital wanted to take that prepared step of what would we do in that instance? Because they’re going to be looking towards us.”

Walker said the unknowns about AI are a main concern.

“I think that’s the biggest thing is that we don’t know. AI is just so unpredictable right now. We’re not 100% sure how it can attack. So this drill today really put us through what would that look like?” Walker said. “We really rely on a lot of technology in the hospital systems. A lot of driven things that maybe you don’t think about.”

She added, “It’s more or less how does those lab reports get to certain departments? How do we talk to other hospitals through that technology? So when that information is compromised, what do you do?”

Walker said the drill helped the hospital identify gaps to address and ensure it has a plan in place if an attack happens.

She said the response requires collaboration from every department, including dietary, environmental services, the vice president and the CEO.

“They’re going to see it from different views,” Walker said. “They’re going to say, ‘hey, this is going to compromise this and we may not have thought of that.”

Walker said with a background in emergency medicine, hospital staff are always thinking about “what if.”

She said, “Especially in the ER, you’re always wanting to know what’s going to happen. You’re critically thinking. You don’t want to just rely on whenever the patient presents that. You should be able to identify things, see it trending in a certain way, and then know what to do. So I think that also kind of correlates with that emergency preparedness as well.”

Walker and Traci Bromaghim, OSF St. Anthony’s director of emergency services, were among the staff at the drill. Along with how to address technology and infrastructure, the possible impact on patients was the center of the conversation.

“Our number one priority is always patient safety,” Bromaghim said. “We talked a lot about what do we do when we don’t have our medical records to look things up? We really brought it back to the bedside, right? Going straight to the patient, asking the patient, you know, what their allergies may be, things like that.”

Bromaghim said the drill highlighted systems the hospital has in place to keep patients safe. She said it also highlighted practices staff used to do that they need to “go back to old school” to use.

Bromaghim said the drill allowed staff to see which systems other hospitals across Illinois have in place and where OSF St. Anthony is already ahead.

“I think it opens our eyes, right, on how much we rely on technology to care for our patients,” Bromaghim said.

She said it shows why it is important to be proactive.

“What can we put in place that maybe we’ve never thought about before, but we need to start thinking about it now,” Bromaghim said.

IBM’s report found that 1 in 4 organizations that experienced a malicious breach had AI driving the attack, a 56% increase over last year. Deepfakes and impersonations were the most common types at 45 percent.

The report found AI attacks are more costly to an organization because they attack faster and on a larger scale, adding an extra $1 million.

IBM says health care is fifth overall among industries for the share of malicious or criminal attacks. Transportation sees the highest share.