UK's NHS says hackers have published data stolen in ransomware attack (updated)

Synlab AG

24/06/2024 17:42

(Adds details from statement in paragraph 2, 4, 8, background
in paragraphs 6, 7)
    By Muvija M
       LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - Britain's National Health
Service said on Monday that data had been published online
following a highly disruptive ransomware attack on a medical
diagnostics service used by several major London hospitals
earlier this month.
    NHS England said the Synnovis diagnostics service - a
partnership between the hospitals and German company Synlab
 SYAB.DE  - would carry out further work to understand the full
scale of the data breach and how patients had been affected. 
    "Synnovis has now confirmed through an initial analysis that
the data published by a cyber crime group has been stolen from
some of their systems," NHS England said.
        NHS England said it might be some weeks before it was
clear which individuals have been impacted.
  
        "At present, Synnovis has confirmed there is no evidence
the cyber criminals have published a copy of the database
(Laboratory Information Management System) where patient test
requests and results are stored, although their investigations
are ongoing," NHS statement said.
    The BBC reported last week that the criminal group behind
the attack has been trying to extort money from Synnovis and had
threatened to publish data if it was not paid. The BBC said it
had seen a sample of data that included patients' names, dates
of birth, NHS numbers and descriptions of blood tests.
        Services at large London hospitals including Guy's, St
Thomas' and King's have been disrupted following the attack.
  
        "Local health systems will continue to work together to
manage the impact on patients with additional resources put in
to ensure urgent blood samples can still be processed, while
laboratories are now able to see historic patient records," NHS
England said.
  

 (Reporting by Muvija M; editing by David Milliken)
 ((Muvija.M@thomsonreuters.com; within the UK: +44 7776813338,
outside the UK: +91 80 61822698; Twitter: https://twitter.com/muvija_m;))