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Ireland has refused to pay a ransom in bitcoin to hackers who were forced to shut down most of its health IT systems, unable to access doctors ’patient records and not knowing whether patients should show up for appointments.
“The bailout has been sought and will not be paid for in line with state policy,” a spokesman for the Irish Health Service Directorate told the Financial Times on Friday evening, confirming that the bailout was sought at the cryptocurrency conference.
Paul Reid, director general of the Irish Health Service, said in a morning radio broadcast that the decision to shut down the system was a “precautionary” measure that affected national and local systems with “highly sophisticated” cyberattacks and “all our basic services”.
Several elements of the Irish health service continue to operate, such as the clinical system and its Covid-19 vaccination program, equipped with separate infrastructure. Pre-booked Covid tests are also underway.
However, the system for processing doctors and referrals from close contacts did not work, the HSE tweeted, adding that those who needed tests should go to itinerant centers that would prioritize symptomatic cases.
“This has a big impact on our health and social care services today, but it affects different services as individual services and hospital teams. Emergency services continue to move forward @AmbulanceNAS [the National Ambulance Service]”Health Minister Stephen Donnelly wrote on Twitter.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, although Reid said Friday morning that it was “Conti, a human-caused ransomware,” citing the type of software used. Conti was first discovered in December 2019, and hackers based in Russia or Eastern Europe typically demand a $ 240,000 ransom, according to a study by Arete Advisors.
“We are in the early stages of understanding the threat, impact and holding on to it,” Reid said, adding that they are receiving support from the Irish police force, defense forces and tertiary cyber support teams.
HSEs Twitter feed It offers a long list of hospital updates about services that are being discontinued, such as non-emergency radiation treatment, X-rays, physiotherapy and cardiac diagnostic services. Some of the cancellations go until Monday.
The head of Dublin’s Rotunda Maternity Hospital said she advised patients under 36 weeks pregnant not to attend appointments on Friday. In a statement, Cork University Hospital said patients should be presented for outpatient appointments, chemotherapy and surgery “unless they contact you to cancel,” but they have canceled their radiography and radiotherapy appointments on Friday.
Professor Donal O’Shea, an endocrinologist consultant at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, told RTE radio that there could be implications for caring for patients. “Clinical systems are not targeted, but if you can’t get into the computer, it’s impossible to get results. . . so soon there will be clinical consequences, “he said. Cork University Hospital said in its statement that” only emergency blood “will be processed at this time.
Reid said patients at the national level “should still move forward until they hear something different.”
Health workers told FT turn off laptops, leaving staff offline at home and working in hospitals are returned to the pen and paper to manage patient information.
In one statement on its website, the Irish children’s and family agency Tusla said its emails, internal systems and a portal to refer to child protection were also not offline because HSE networks were hosted offline.
Attacks by cybercriminals to disrupt public services have intensified during the pandemic. Earlier this month, hackers in Eastern Europe hacked IT systems Colonial Pipeline, The main fuel route that supplies much of the eastern United States.
“Opportunistic cyber-attackers targeting flood health organizations have been a common issue during the pandemic,” said Charlie Smith, a consulting engineer for solutions at Barracuda Networks. “These scammers are aware of the importance of computer systems in health services at the moment and therefore will not stop at stopping said systems or stealing valuable data in exchange for rescue.”
Additional report by Hannah Murphy in San Francisco
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