A South Florida dermatology practice showed up on a ransomware leak-site tracker before dawn Friday. Ransomware.live indexed Skin Center (skincenter.com) as a claimed victim of The Gentlemen ransomware group at 2026-10-16 09:36 UTC (about 5:36 a.m. ET), with an actor-posted date of Oct. 14. The tracker tags the listing U.S. / Healthcare. No data size, ransom demand, or file inventory is shown.
Skin Center's own site describes a full-service medical and cosmetic dermatology clinic at 6550 North Federal Highway, Suite 320, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with more than 40 years serving the area. Its patient-portal link points to Forefront Dermatology's portal. The public site was up (HTTP 200) when we checked Friday morning. This is not the same practice as Skin Center of South Miami, which appeared in DermCare Management's separately disclosed 2025 incident.
What's claimed, and what's confirmed
Claimed: The Gentlemen listed Skin Center with a long profile of the practice — services, staff, ownership, and reviews. Parts of that profile mirror the practice's public website; the rest we could not independently verify. A listing is an actor assertion that the practice is a victim. It is not proof of what, if anything, was taken.
Not confirmed: As of Friday morning we found no statement from Skin Center, no news report, and no regulator or state attorney general breach notice tied to this listing. There is no confirmed encryption, no confirmed theft of patient records (PHI), no reported appointment or clinic disruption, and no word on any payment. Treat this as a claim until the practice says otherwise.
Why it matters to dermatology and specialty medical practices
Dermatology offices run a dense mix of systems: an EHR and practice-management platform, pathology and lab results, clinical photos of skin lesions, billing and insurance portals, cosmetic-service scheduling, card terminals, and patient-reminder texts. Many practices also sit inside a larger physician network, so billing, records, and IT may run through shared services rather than the local office.
That matters across Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, and the rest of the Southeast. When a headline names a practice, the fastest damage is often not encryption. It is scam traffic: fake "your records were exposed, click to verify" texts to patients, spoofed calls asking staff for remote access, and "updated bank details" emails to the office manager from a supposed lab or supplier.
Ask the practical question now: if the EHR were unreachable for three days, could your front desk still see the schedule, reach patients, check in walk-ins, and tell a real vendor call from a fake one? Specialty practices that rely on one shared front-desk login and an untested backup inherit the risk, even if they're nowhere near Fort Lauderdale.
Clear takeaway
Treat The Gentlemen's claim against Skin Center as a continuity and scam-hygiene drill for dermatology and specialty medical practices. Require MFA on email, EHR, and portals; keep restorable copies of practice-management data and clinical images; give every team member a named login; and plan what patients will be told — without assuming PHI theft, encryption, or downtime the practice has not confirmed.
Actions to take this week
- Require MFA on Microsoft 365 or Google email, the EHR and practice-management system, lab and insurance portals, and any remote-access tool.
- Confirm backups you can restore of the practice-management database, clinical photos, and scanned documents, with one copy that cannot be changed or deleted. Test a restore this month.
- Replace shared front-desk and exam-room logins with named accounts so access can be traced and revoked one person at a time.
- Inventory vendor remote access (IT provider, EHR support, imaging and laser-device vendors): unique accounts, MFA, and sessions you approve.
- Brief staff and patients on scam texts and calls: the practice never asks patients to "verify" data through a link, and staff never grant remote access to an unscheduled caller.
- Write a one-page incident card: who leads, who calls your insurer and IT provider, where a printed copy of the next few days' schedule lives, and who decides what patients hear.
Brotherly Technology helps medical and dental practices, specialty clinics, and other healthcare SMBs across Rome, Northwest Georgia, metro Atlanta, Chattanooga, and the Southeast turn ransomware headlines into a short, HIPAA-minded continuity review — MFA, backups, vendor access, and patient-scam controls. If you want a second set of eyes before the next claim lands, give us a call.
Sources:
- Ransomware.live: Skin Center / The Gentlemen. Discovered 2026-10-16 09:36 UTC; actor date 2026-10-14; U.S. healthcare listing; claim-level only (no data size disclosed).
- Skin Center (skincenter.com). Company context: Fort Lauderdale, FL dermatology clinic, 6550 N. Federal Hwy., Suite 320. No incident acknowledgment cited here.
- HIPAA Journal: DermCare Management data breach. Context only: the separate 2025 DermCare incident involved Skin Center of South Miami, a different practice.