UNM Health and UNM Health Sciences Center (New Mexico): cyber event diverts ambulances and suspends outpatient surgeries

What happened

• UNM HSC said IT teams identified the threat around 11:00 on Mon 26 Oct 2026. UNM Health diverted ambulance traffic to other Albuquerque-area systems from 12:30 to 14:30, suspended outpatient surgeries and appointments for the rest of the day, and the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Population Health cancelled classes on 27 Oct. Hospitals were fully open and clinics resumed on 27 Oct; all clinical operations were “fully functional” by 28 Oct. The 27 Oct update said the event affected some end-user devices but did not reach core systems or servers.
• Root cause / initial access: not disclosed; UNM does not call it ransomware.
• Attacker: not named. UNM said it “did not make concessions with any group behind the threat” and warned the public not to engage with groups claiming responsibility (secondary reports cite an extortion group claiming 36,000 systems; unverified).
• Response: Emergency Operations Center activated; state and federal law enforcement notified; criminal investigation.

Sources

• https://hscnews.unm.edu/news/ambulance-traffic-diverted-clinical-appointments-cancelled-and-classes-cancelled-due-to-cybersecurity-issue-at-unm-hsc
• https://unmhealth.org/

This is a brief: a short, sourced summary from our incident tracking. Full advisories add commands to check whether you are affected.