At least 18 hospitals in Romania were knocked offline after a ransomware attack took down their healthcare management system.
The
Hipocrate Information System (HIS) used by hospitals to manage medical activity and patient data was targeted over the weekend and is now offline after its database was encrypted.
"During the night of 11-12 February 2024, a massive ransomware cyber-attack targeted the production servers running the HIS information system. As a result of the attack, the system is down, files and databases are encrypted," the Romanian Ministry of Health
said.
"The incident is under investigation by IT specialists, including cybersecurity experts from the National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC), and the possibilities for recovery are being assessed.
"Exceptional precautionary measures have also been activated for the other hospitals not affected by the attack."
The ransomware attack affected various hospitals across Romania, including regional and cancer treatment centers, and a team of DNSC cybersecurity experts is currently investigating the cyber incident.
DNSC
advised against reaching out to affected hospitals' IT teams "so they can focus on restoring IT services and data."
