According to recent reports, a hospital close to Paris, in Versailles was forced to halt its operations and send six patients to other hospitals due to a cyber attack. An investigation is in motion following the hospital’s complaint. Read the entire article to learn more about this article.
About the cyber attack
Authorities at the Hospital Centre of Versailles which also includes Andre-Mignot Hospital, Richaud Hospital, and the Despagne Retirement Home, said that they were affected by the hacking attempt. According to the ARS which stands for the regional health agency, the hospital did transfer the patients but still did everything it could to keep the consultations and the walk-in services in motion like regular days. There was a need for more staff in the intensive care unit (ICU) as the people needed to monitor the screens. The cyberattack has led to a “total reorganization of the hospital”, the minister added.
An investigation is in motion as the hospital filed a formal complaint. Several reports state that various hospitals in France are becoming the victims of cyber attacks and this has been going on for quite some months now.
Francois Braun, who is the French minister for social affairs and health claimed that the same hospital has been the victim of several of these cyber attacks.
As per what the minister has said about the patients who were transferred, 3 belonged to the intensive care unit and the other 3 were from the neonatal unit. In the initial half of this year, a similar incident took place with another hospital in France and it took a long time for the hospital to come back on its feet and enable the smooth functioning of its operations. The Corbeil-Essonnes hospital went through one of the most damaging cyber attacks wherein they were asked to pay a ransom of $10 million which later came down to two million dollars. The hackers gave a date, 23rd September to pay off the ransom but when that did not happen, they leaked the files of the staff as well as the patients on the dark web.
The patient’s data is confidential and when the information about the patient gets leaked during such attacks, the reputation of the patient gets threatened. They may lose out on a lot of things due to the leaked data. It might also cause them to never fully approach the doctors with their problems due to the fear of it getting disclosed.
