Safdarjung Hospital faces hacking attack, how it is different from AIIMS cyberattack and other details

After AIIMS Delhi, another top hospital in the city Safdarjung Hospital has been hit by cyber attack. Safdarjung Hospital officials said that the hospital faced a cyber-attack. However, the damage was not as severe as it had been for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital. “There was a cyberattack. Our server was also down in November for a single day, but data was secured. It was handled by IT, National informatics Centre (NIC) which revived the systems,” said Medical Superintendent Safdarjung Hospital Dr BL Sherwal.
What was the issue
The officials said that unlike AIIMs cyberattack on Safdarjung Hospital was not ransomware attack and that the hospital’s IP was blocked.
Services at Safdarjung Hospital not badly affected
According to the officials, the hospital runs OPD services manually therefore it had not been badly impacted. “In November only for one day, we heard that the server was down for some time but later they got revived. Most of the time we do our work manually,” said a senior resident doctor.
Also Read:AIIMS-Delhi services to start going back online from December 6
AIIMS server continues to be down
The server at AIIMS continues to be down since the cyber attack on November 23. Internet services are still blocked and no information has reportedly been shared by the administration with the hospital faculty and staff. All hospital services, including outpatient, in-patient, laboratories, etc continue to run on manual mode. The services are likely to start in the middle of next week manually. Approximately 3000 computers have been scanned and antivirus has also been uploaded for future safety.
AIIMS e-Hospital data restored
Earlier this week, AIIMS issued a statement saying that the e-Hospital data has been restored. “The e-Hospital data has been restored on the servers. The network is being sanitised before the services can be restored. The process is taking some time due to the volume of data and the large number of servers/computers for the hospital services. Measures are being taken for cyber security.” The laboratory information system (LIS) database and other dependent databases have been restored.
Also Read:Held to ransom: Healthcare sector is a sitting duck to cybercriminals. AIIMS and other hospitals must shore up security systems
Chinese hackers hand suspected
The investigation into the incident of hacking of computers at AIIMS has pointed towards the role of China-based hackers, sources told TOI. The probe also suggests that the hackers may have started putting the data for sale on the dark web as their demands were not met, the source added. This has raised fears of confidential data of lakhs of patients, including politicians, having been leaked. Officials are, however, denying that any data has been compromised. Investigation has confirmed that five main servers were targeted by the Chinese hackers who subsequently put it on the dark web.
Delhi Police files FIR
Delhi Police has filed an FIR of extortion and cyber terrorism on the complaint of AIIMS security officer. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also joined the investigation. The India Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) representatives too are probing the incident.