NHS May Need Month to Recover From Ransomware Attack

NHS patients and operators have been warned that they could face a month-long wait to return to normal operations as IT supplier Advanced repairs the damage of the ransomware attack that took place earlier this month.

On August 4 at 7am BST, a myriad of NHS services including its 111 helpline was taken down by an attack which hit supplier Advanced. 

This attack has now been confirmed to be financially motivated. 

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While Advanced were able to contain the attack, it has come at the expense of vital processes such as ambulance dispatch, appointment bookings and patient referrals.

These repercussions could take a month to rectify, says the British IT provider, with some healthcare staff reportedly resorting to pen and paper.

It's not clear at this time whether confidential patient data has been stolen. 

Enterprise tech leaders have responded to the attack, including Jason Hart, CTO EMEA at Rapid7, who said: “Despite the efforts of the NHS, the volume of activity targeting public healthcare organisations, combined with demands and constraints on resources, means that the cyber risk is still very high.

"Building resilience must be a focus, whether that's to fend off nation-state attacks or the more common profit-motivated cyberattacks.  

“Cybersecurity is not an ‘install and forget about it’ job, but a process that must be operationalised so security resilience can be continually improved.

"The lifecycle of “assess, detect and remediate” when dealing with cyberattacks can no longer be an option, instead it must be an essential part of the organisation’s process and form part of the cost of operational running.”

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