Irish Hospitals Are Latest to Be Hit by Ransomware Attacks
A cyberattack on Ireland’s health system has paralyzed the country’s health services for a week, cutting off access to patient records, delaying Covid-19 testing, and forcing cancellations of medical appointments.
Using ransomware, which is malware that encrypts victims’ data until they pay a ransom, the people behind the attack have been holding hostage the data at Ireland’s publicly funded health care system, the Health Service Executive. The attack forced the H.S.E. to shut down its entire information technology system.
Caroline Kohn, a spokeswoman for a group of hospitals in the eastern part of the country, said the hospitals were forced to keep all of their records on paper. “We’re back to the 1970s,” she said.
Security researchers believe the attack on Ireland’s hospitals is the work of a Russian-speaking cybercriminal group known as Wizard Spider. In a ransom note posted online, the criminals have threatened to publish the health network’s stolen data, unless officials pay a $19,999,000 ransom.
Ireland’s prime minister, Micheál Martin, said the government would not pay. “We’re very clear we will not be paying any ransom,” he said in a news conference last week.
