A cybersecurity event struck the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center on Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, the university said. Its security teams moved to contain it, and state and federal police were told. For two hours, starting at 12:30 p.m., UNM Health took in fewer new patients, and ambulances went elsewhere. Outpatient surgeries and clinic visits stopped for the day. Systems returned in phases from 2:30 p.m. Clinics resume Tuesday, Oct. 27.
SecurityWeek, citing the Associated Press, reported that several employees saw computer messages claiming stolen student, employee and patient data. UNM has not confirmed this. A spokesperson declined comment, citing an active police investigation. The FBI said it was assisting. The cause, the attacker and any data loss are not known. Josephine Wolff of Tufts University said hospital incidents have lasted a decade, but a message played on computers is unusual.
UNM said system outages forced it to suspend outpatient surgeries and visits that day. SecurityWeek said the state was left without an emergency department for the most serious injuries. Buyers and operators of clinical software can ask which workflows fail when the network is isolated, what the manual fallback is, and where patients would be sent.