NHS Hospitals Pwned By Ransomware In Epic Fashion
Across the United Kingdom, people were seeing Tweets like these pop up in their Twitter feeds:
Apologies to patients that the NHS is experiencing significant IT problems today. Telephones to the practice are working for EMERGENCIES
— Fulwood Green (@FulwoodGreen1) May 12, 2017
Please be aware the NHS is experiencing serious IT problems today. Please only contact your GP surgery or hospital in a genuine emergency.
— One Liverpool (@_OneLiverpool) May 12, 2017
The reason for this is simple. National Health Service hospitals (or NHS for short) have been pwned by ransomware in a co-ordianted attack. Here’s the details from the BBC:
Staff cannot access patient data, which has been scrambled by ransomware. There is no evidence patient data has been compromised, NHS Digital has said.
The BBC understands up to 25 NHS organisations and some GP practices have been affected.
It comes amid reports of cyber-attacks affecting organisations worldwide.
A Downing Street Spokesman said Prime Minister Theresa May was being kept informed of the situation, while Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is being briefed by the National Cyber Security Centre.
According to cybersecurity firm Foursys The ransomware is holding each computer hostage for $300 in Bitcoin. The malware demands that hospitals pay by May 15, or all the encrypted files will be deleted by May 19. Ironically, this firm manages cybersecurity for 140 NHS sites. Read into that wha you will. Also of note, according to cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs, the ransomware was spread through a recently patched flaw Microsoft Windows SMB or Server Message Block service which Windows computers rely upon to share files and printers across a local network. Which implies that they didn’t patch their systems when the patch came out in March. #fail.
This is serious and proof that organizations of all sizes need to get serious about protecting themselves against this sort of attack.
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