New Zealand Health Service Under Attack
New Zealand has been hit by a cyber security incident which has affected five hospitals. Hackers claiming to be behind a cyber attack that led to surgeries being postponed at Waikato public hospitals this week have made contact with health officials. The Waikato District Health Board (DHB) said that investigators are still determining whether patient records had been lost or other privacy breaches had happened.
The DHB do not know who was behind the apparent ransomware attack or if it was connected in any way to the attack on the Irish Health Service (HSE) although local sources appeared to indicate it was a ransomware attack.
The DHB has now said that it is addressing “a cyber security incident” and was “experiencing a full outage” of its information systems. The district board said the incident has affected five hospitals, the Waikato, Thames, Tokoroa, Te Kuiti and Taumarunui, all “to varying degrees”.
An update, said “good progress” had been made overnight to get systems back online.“We are currently working with other government departments to investigate the cause, but are working on the theory that the initial incursion was via an email attachment. A forensic investigation is ongoing.” The statement also revealed that as a result of the disruption on 18 May six elective surgeries were cancelled, while 95 went ahead.
The incident follows a large scale cyber attack on Ireland’s health IT system on 14 May. Services have been switched off following reports of a possible “human-operated ‘Conti’ ransomware attack that had severely disabled a number of systems”.
It also came as high-profile cyber attacks had increasingly made headlines around the world, including the recent Irish attack and another that shut down an important United States' fuel pipeline. It is not yet clear if the ransomware was successfully deployed or how much private, patient data has been affected.
NZHerald: Digital Health: WaikatoDHB: ITPro: Irish Independent:
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