Hospitals across England hit by large-scale cyber-attack – UPDATE
Britain’s National Health Service said it had suffered a major cyber attack on Friday, disrupting hospitals all over England.
The health service said it had been hit with malicious software known as ‘ransomware’ that locks up computers and demands ransoms to restore access, but that so far it did not believe patient data had been accessed.
UPDATE: Britain’s main opposition Labour Party called on the government to be clear about how a nationwide ‘ransomware’ cyber attack hit the state-run National Health Service (NHS) on Friday.
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“This incident highlights the risk to data security within the modern health service and reinforces the need for cyber security to be at the heart of government planning,” Labour health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth said.
“The Government need to be clear about what’s happened, and what measures they are taking to reduce the threat to patients,” he added.
The National Health Service (NHS) said 16 organisations had been affected by the cyber attack but said it had not been specifically targeted. No patient data was believed to have been accessed by the ransomware attack but it was unclear whether it had impacted any emergency cases.
Spain’s government said on Friday a large number of companies, including telecommunications giant Telefonica , had been attacked by cyber criminals who infected computers with ransomware.
“The investigation is at an early stage but we believe the malware variant is Wanna Decryptor,” NHS Digital, the computer arm of the English health service, said in a statement.
“This attack was not specifically targeted at the NHS and is affecting organisations from across a range of sectors.”
Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, part of the GCHQ spy agency, said it was aware of a cyber incident and was working with NHS Digital and the police to investigate.
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Hospitals across England reported the cyber attack was causing huge problems to their services and the public in areas affected were being advised to only seek medical care for emergencies.
A reporter from the Health Service Journal said the attack had affected X-ray imaging systems, pathology test results, phone systems and patient administration systems.
The Barts Health group, which manages major central London hospitals including The Royal London and St Bartholomew’s, said it had activated a major incident plan and had cancelled routine appointments.
“We are experiencing a major IT disruption and there are delays at all of our hospitals,” it said. “Ambulances are being diverted to neighbouring hospitals.”
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