AOnce again, a hospital in France has been hit by a cyber attack. The entire hospital in Versailles near Paris has been the target of such an attack since Saturday evening, the hospital management said on Sunday. As Health Minister François Braun announced after a visit to Versailles, several patients had to be transferred to other hospitals.
According to the information, two locations of the hospital and a nursing home were affected by the cyber attack. The clinic management explained that the admission of patients was “restricted”, the IT system had been switched off and a crisis team had been deployed.
Additional staff in the intensive care unit
In order to maintain operations, additional staff were deployed, especially in the intensive care unit, as Braun said after a tour. All devices are still working, but since no data transmission is possible, “you need more people to monitor the patients in the intensive care unit”.
The emergency services are unaffected and prepared to transfer patients to other hospitals, Braun added. Since Saturday evening, three seriously ill patients have had to be transferred, three from the intensive care unit and three from the early and newborn unit. According to Braun, however, the cyber attack was noticed early enough for all data protection measures to be put in place.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office has launched preliminary investigations into, among other things, attempted extortion and intrusion into a state computer system. The hospital has filed a complaint.
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities in France have been the victims of cyber attacks several times in recent months. Hacker groups blocked patients’ confidential data, passed it on and disabled devices.
At the end of August, hackers attacked the Corbeil-Essonnes hospital south of Paris, disrupting operations for weeks. The attackers demanded a ransom of $10 million, which was later reduced to a $1 million or $2 million demand. After a period of time had passed without the hospital paying the ransom, the hackers published data on patients and staff on the dark web, among other things. Hacker attacks have also occurred in other European countries, including Germany, in recent years.
