Ireland's National Public Health System announced this morning that it had to shut down its computer servers following a “major ransomware cyberattack” last night. The hackers' objective was, according to the first reports, the theft or kidnapping of the patients' medical records, but for the moment the only sure thing they have achieved is that some medical appointments are suspended and that the system is paralyzed for a few hours as “precautionary” measure. As confirmed by the authorities, the vaccination campaign against the coronavirus will not be affected.
“Right now there is a ransomware attack against the National Health System. We have taken the precaution of shutting down all our servers to protect them from the attack and deal with the situation with our security advisors.. We apologize to the patients and the general public for the inconvenience caused,” said the official Twitter account of the health agency early in the morning.
The cyberattack used malicious software similar to the one that attacked Colonial Pipeline, the operator of a huge US oil pipeline that restarted its entire system on Thursday night after being paralyzed last weekend.. That attack was carried out by the DarkSide criminal group, the US federal police said.
The most probable hypothesis is that, as has happened on previous occasions, what the hackers wanted was to 'hijack' the data, taking control of the servers to later demand a large sum of money to recover them.. These data not only include medical records and personal information of patients, but also their medical appointments and the organization necessary to structure the entire health system of the country.
However, according to Paul Reid, CEO of the Republic of Ireland Medical Services, they have yet to hear from the cybercriminals, so it is not known at this time how much information they have gotten hold of and if they plan to sell it on the market. black or demand something in exchange for getting it back. “They have not asked us for any ransom yet, so the main thing right now is to contain the matter,” Reid said on Irish public television.. “This is a very sophisticated attack, it is not a normal one, and it has affected both our national and local services, that is, the entire core of the system. Luckily the vaccination campaign is external to all this.”
Already during the morning, some hospitals such as the Rotunda in Dublin, a maternity center in the capital, claimed to be experiencing a “critical emergency”, forcing them to cancel all appointments there except those for pregnant women of more than 35 weeks, while the oncology wing of Cork University Hospital has been paralyzed throughout the day.
“Here we use a very normal system for registering patients, and it seems that this has been the entry point for them,” said Fergal Malone, head of the Rotunda, who assures that they realized the cyberattack around 2 in the morning. early morning. “We had to close all the servers, but we had a contingency system prepared for these situations that has allowed us to get back on paper. Patients will be able to come in to give birth over the weekend and we will be able to take care of them just as well.”