A number of major London hospitals, including St Thomas’, the Royal Brompton, and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, have been targeted in a cyber attack
believed to be orchestrated by Russian hackers. Ciaran Martin, former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, disclosed this information during an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Martin identified the criminal group, known as Qilin, which primarily operates on the dark web and "freely from within Russia." The group has a history of targeting various sectors, including automotive companies, Australian courts, and the Big Issue in the UK, with the primary aim of extorting money.
The attack targeted the pathology services firm Synnovis, leading to a critical incident declaration on Tuesday. This ransomware attack disrupted blood transfusions and test results, caused the cancellation of operations, and led to the diversion of emergency patients.
King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’, and primary care services were among the affected facilities. Martin explained that this was a serious type of ransomware attack where the systems were rendered non-functional rather than just data being stolen for extortion.
He clarified that while the criminals threatened to publish data, the primary concern was the restoration of hospital services. Martin stated, "This attack is one of the more serious that we've seen in this country."
Oliver Dowson, a patient at one of the affected hospitals, recounted how his heart procedure was abruptly canceled moments before it was scheduled to take place due to issues with the blood bank caused by the cyber attack. "When you've been sitting there since the crack of dawn in a smock waiting to have open-heart surgery, however calm I tried to feel, you still get a bit nervous," Dowson said, expressing his frustration at the rescheduling of his procedure.
The NHS has apologized for the inconvenience caused to patients and confirmed that it is working with the National Cyber Security Centre to assess the impact of the attack. Synnovis has not provided further comments on the situation. Photo by B_A, Wikimedia commons.