UK NHS Hospital Reports ‘Major’ Cyberincident

A U.K. National Health Service teaching hospital in northwest England reported a major cyberincident on Tuesday that forced the healthcare facility to cancel outpatient appointments for the day.

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“A major incident has been declared at the Trust for cyber security reasons. All outpatient appointments scheduled today are canceled,” the hospital said on Tuesday while requesting its patients to avail its emergency department only for “genuine” cases.

The Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust also oversees the Arrowe Park, Clatterbridge, and Wirral Women and Children’s hospitals.

In late Tuesday update, the hospital said its maternity services, neo-natal, and emergency triage are “running as normal.”

Tje Liverpool Echoreported systems at Arrowe Park went offline after the attack.

“Everything is down. Everything is done electronically so there’s no access to records, results or anything so we are having to do everything manually, which is really difficult. The damage is huge,” an unidentified staffer told the publication.

The Wirral NHS Trust did not immediately respond to requests seeking additional information.

A National Cyber Security Centre spokesperson said the agency is working with NHS England to “fully understand the impact of an incident.” A spokesperson for the Information Commissioner’s Office said the hospital has reported the incident to the data regulator.

The attack is the latest case of a hacking incident impacting the delivery of healthcare in the United Kingdom. In June, Russian-speaking Qilin ransomware group hit Synnovis, a U.K. provider of medical laboratory services for NHS hospitals. The attack disrupted services at NHS King’s College and Guy’s and St. Thomas’ – forcing the health facilities to reschedule at least 1,500 medical appointments (see: NHS: Most Patient Services Online Following Synnovis Attack).

The attack on Wirral University Teaching Hospital is yet another “despicable and shallow” attempt by cybercriminals said, Dan Lattimer, vice president at Semperis, an Active Directory and recovery solutions firm.

The hospital’s decision to activate its business continuity plans will help the NHS service to bring down the impact of the incident across its operations, he added.

“Today, there’s no silver bullet that will solve the cybersecurity challenges facing hospitals. First, identify the critical services that are “single points of failure” for the business,” Lattimer said. “In the case of hospitals, it is patient data and other forms of proprietary information. So have a plan to increase the operational resiliency of Active Directory and back it up so that if a cyberattack occurs it can be restored quickly.”