Electronic System of UK NHS Hospital Hit by Malware!

On 30th October 2016, the electronic system of NHS’s (National Health Service) Lincolnshire and Goole trust has been hit by a malware. After this incident, NHS immediately posted an alert on its official website that all the surgeries, outpatient checkups, diagnosis and appointments which are going to hold on 2nd November have been canceled. NHS also informed that all the major trauma cases have been diverted to neighbor medical service providers and the inpatients will stay in hospital as before.

Reason behind Attack?

In our yesterday’s blog post, we wrote about Australia’s Red Cross Blood Service Data Breach Incident. Scammers are sending phishing text messages to exposed donors for their personal benefits. Hackers are targeting healthcare industry nowadays to steal the huge database of patients. The finance minister of United Kingdom Philip Hammond announced that from now UK will spend $2.3 Billion to protect the country from cyber-attacks and to strike back at hackers. The UK has decided to open its first National Cyber Security Center in London to fight against hackers. A team of 700 cyber security experts will provide its services in the leadership of Ciaran Martin (Former Director General of Government Communications Headquarters). The team of cyber security experts will trace online gangs of cybercriminals.

"In the starting of October 2016, UK Government announced that soon they are going to open National Cyber Security Centre in London. From that day, hackers are regularly targeting government and private organisations of United Kingdom. Malware attack on NHS Lincolnshire and Goole’s Electric System is one of its examples."

What Kind of Malware is it?

National Health Service (NHS) didn’t say anything about the type of malware. It seems like, it was a ransomware attack. Hackers are infecting electric systems of hospitals by using ransomware. They are infecting all the documents, scans, X-Ray Reports, Pictures, Audio Files and other sensitive information of patients. Hackers are using hard coded malicious tools to encrypt this data and they are demanding huge ransom amount to provide decrypt key. To keep themselves away from security experts, they are demanding ransom in Bitcoins.

"For a hospital, the data of patients is more important than its infrastructure. Therefore, to get their data back, large ransom amounts have been paid by the hospitals. Ransom attacks on the hospital are becoming a trend for hackers. In February 2016, the ransom of $17000 has been paid by a California-based hospital to get its data back. After few weeks of this incident, computer systems of another Methodist Hospital have been hit by Locky Ransomware."

Ransom Attacks on Healthcare Industry

Now we are going to introduce you to a shocking fact. According to the latest report of Intel Security, daily 20 Data Loss incidents are happening related to Healthcare Industry only. Hackers are doing this with the help of Ransomware. So far in 2016, the total sum of $100,000 has been transferred updated the affected hospitals to the bitcoin accounts of hackers. Ransom attacks on hospital systems is a serious matter. Hackers can play with the configuration settings of medical equipment. This could result in major body injuries and deaths of inpatients. The electric systems of every hospital should be secure enough. Because nothing is more important than human lives.

Current Status of This Malware Attack

NHS Lincolnshire and Goole has update an alert on its official website. They have written that majority of their electronic systems is working fine now. All the patients can attend surgeries, appointments, diagnosis and scans which are going to help on 3rd November.

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