Ireland’s health care system taken down after ransomware attack

Ireland has shut down most of the major IT systems running its national health care service, leaving doctors unable to access patient records and people unsure of whether they should show up for appointments, following a “very sophisticated” ransomware attack.

Paul Reid, chief executive of Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), told a morning radio show that the decision to shut down the systems was a “precautionary” measure after a cyberattack that impacted national and local systems “involved in all of our core services.”

一些元素的爱尔兰卫生服务仍然operational, such as clinical systems and its COVID-19 vaccination program, which is powered by separate infrastructure. COVID tests already booked are also going ahead.

However, the system for processing referrals from GPs and of close contacts is down, the HSE tweeted, adding that those in need of testing should go to walk-in centers, which would prioritize symptomatic cases.

“This is having a severe impact on our health and social care services today, but individual services and hospital groups are impacted in different ways. Emergency services continue, as does the @AmbulanceNAS [National Ambulance Service],” health minister Stephen Donnelly wrote on Twitter.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, though Reid said on Friday morning that it involved “Conti, human-operated ransomware,” referring to the type of software used. He added that the HSE had not yet been served with a ransom demand.

“我们正处于充分了解威胁，影响力，试图遏制它的早期阶段，”他表示，并补充说，HSA正在接受来自爱尔兰警察部队，国防军和第三方网络支持团队的援助。

都柏林的罗德拉孕产医院硕士表示，这是一个不到36周怀孕的患者，不在周五任命出席。在一份声明中，科克大学医院表示，患者应出具门诊预约，化疗和手术“除非您联系取消”，但周五的X射线和放射治疗约会被取消。

Professor Donal O’Shea, consultant endocrinologist at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, told RTE radio that there could be implications for patient care. “Clinical systems haven’t been targeted, but if you can’t access your computer, then getting results is impossible...  so before long, there are going to be clinical implications,” he said. In its statement, Cork University Hospital said “only emergency blood [tests]” would be processed at this time.

Reid said that patients nationally “should still come forward until they hear something different” and that an update should be available later on Friday. A spokeswoman for the HSE was unable to provide a further update on patient care by mid-morning. “We apologize for the inconvenience to the public and will give further information as it becomes available,” she added.

医疗保健工作者告诉英国电脑被告知他们被告知要关闭他们的笔记本电脑，在家里的员工离线以及在医院工作的人恢复钢笔和纸张来管理患者的信息。

In a statement on its website, Ireland’s child and family agency Tusla said that its emails, internal systems, and portal for child protection referrals was also offline because they are hosted by the HSE’s network.

The attack comes as actions by cyber criminals to disrupt public services have increased during the pandemic. Earlier this month, hackers believed to be from eastern Europe breached the IT systems of the Colonial Pipeline, a major fuel conduit that supplies much of the eastern US.

“Opportunistic cyber attackers targeting flooded health care organizations has been a common theme throughout the course of the pandemic,” said Charlie Smith, consulting solutions engineer at Barracuda Networks. “These scammers are aware of the huge significance of health services’ IT systems at this time and so will stop at nothing to disrupt said systems or steal valuable data in exchange for ransom.”

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