Cyberattack hits timekeeping service provider used by Honolulu EMS, BWS, The Queen’s Health System employees

HONOLULU (KHON2) — A cyberattack on Kronos, a Cloud-based provider, is affecting hundreds of employees at the Board of Water Supply (BWS), Honolulu Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and The Queen’s Health Systems, who use the service. These agencies use Kronos for its timekeeping system.

The BWS was first to report of the incident on Monday, Dec. 13, and said it was notified of the attack disrupting Kronos Private Cloud (KPC) services Sunday evening.

Although the ransomware attack is impacting the KPC services, BWS is assuring its customers that they are not affected. However, BWS employees are advised to check their credit reports for any unusual or unauthorized activity. The nature and scope of the attack is unknown at this time.

The BWS said it immediately shut off all access to Kronos after it was notified and says the parent company of the service provider, UKG, took immediate action as well to investigate the issue.

City spokesperson Tim Sakahara said EMS employees are inputting their hours manually, and no personal information on employees or patients has been compromised at this time.

The Queen’s Health Systems said they were notified Sunday, Dec. 12 about the Kronos outage. Queen’s said it has no knowledge of any personal information that has been improperly used. Queen’s said there is limited information stored on the system such as names, phone numbers and addresses. Employees’ social security numbers or financial and banking data is not stored on Kronos. Queen’s will give this week’s paychecks as scheduled based on employee’s standard hours. Queen’s reports future paychecks will also be given out on time. The company says is it working on a way to address pay for any overtime and extra shifts.

Just last week, Oahu Transit Services — which runs TheBus and TheHandi-Van — was targeted in a cyberattack. Officials are looking into whether passengers’ sensitive information is at risk. The FBI and Secret Service are now investigating.