Russian cyber hackers who conducted a ransomware attack on major hospitals in London have published confidential files containing personal details of patients, NHS England has confirmed.
The cyber attack was carried out against Synnovis, a private pathology firm that analyses blood tests for Guy’s, St Thomas’ and King’s College hospitals, forcing hospitals to cancel almost 1,600 operations and outpatient appointments.
According to official figures from NHS London, the data for the second week of the attack (June 10 to 16), shows that across the two trusts, more than 1,294 outpatient appointments and 320 elective procedures had to be postponed because of the attack.
“This means so far 1,134 elective procedures and 2,194 outpatient appointments have been postponed at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since June 3,” NHS London said.
Having failed to receive their ransom demand, the hacker group, called Qilin, has pulled the trigger on its threat and published 104 files, each containing 3.7GB of data.
NHS England said today that it had “been made aware that the cyber-criminal group published data last night which they are claiming belongs to Synnovis and was stolen as part of this attack. We know how worrying this development may be for many people. We are taking it very seriously”.
Qilin infiltrated Synnovis’s IT system and locked the computer system by encrypting its files to extort a payment for restoring access.
The trusts have contracts with Synnovis totalling just under £1.1bn for services that are vital to the smooth running of the NHS.
The data published, according to reports from the BBC, included patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers and descriptions of blood tests.
NHS London, in releasing its latest update on the impact of the hack attack on its medical services, has declared a regional incident and has been coordinating work across affected services, as well as with neighbouring providers and national partners to manage disruption.
“Thanks to this work, the majority of planned activity has continued to go ahead,” NHS London said.
“Urgent and emergency services have remained available as usual, and patients should access services in the normal way by dialling 999 in an emergency and otherwise use NHS 111 through the NHS App, online or on the phone.
Apology: Dr Chris Streather
“Patients will be kept informed about any changes to their treatment by the NHS organisation caring for them. This will be through the usual contact routes including text, phone and letters. Staff are working hard to keep all patients informed and we apologise again for any disruption.”
Dr Chris Streather, the medical director for NHS London, said: “Although we are seeing some services operating at near normal levels and have seen a reduction in the number of elective procedures being postponed, the cyber-attack on Synnovis is continuing to have a significant impact on NHS services in south-east London.
“Having treatment postponed is distressing for patients and their families, and I would like to apologise to any patient who has been impacted by the incident, and staff are continuing to work hard to re-arrange appointments and treatments as quickly as possible.
“Mutual aid agreements between NHS labs have begun to have a positive impact in primary care providers, helping increase the number of blood tests available for the most critical and urgent cases.”
NHS Blood and Transplant have called out to O Positive and O Negative blood donors to urgently book appointments to donate in one of the 25 town and city centre NHS Blood Donor Centres in England, to boost stocks of O type blood following the cyber incident, with people urged to visit blood.co.uk or call 0300 123 23 23 to book an appointment.
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