NHS cyber attack: Has my hospital been hacked? Latest list of affected hospitals
A MASSIVE cyber attack has targeted NHS sites across the country with ransomware, plunging them into chaos. But has your local hospital been affected?
NHS sites across England have been targeted by ransomware attacks
NHS hospitals hit by large-scale cyber-attack
Which NHS hospitals are affected?
Some 48 hospitals are understood to have been affected – these are the 37 hospitals the NHS has revealed have been attacked directly and those that shut down their systems as a precaution:
1. Aintree University Hospitals
2. Barnsley Hospital
3. Barts Hospital
4. Basildon and Thurrock Hospitals
5. Birmingham Community Trust
7. Burton Hospitals
8. Central Manchester University Hospitals
9. Cheshire and Wirral Partnership
10. Colchester Hospital
11. Cumbria Partnership
12. Derbyshire Community Health Services
13. East and North Hertfordshire
14. East Cheshire
15. East Lancashire Hospitals
16. Essex Partnership
17. George Eliot Hospital
18. Hampshire Hospitals
19. Ipswich Hospital
20. Liverpool Community Health Trust
21. Liverpool Women’s Hospital
22. London and North West
23. Mid Essex Hospital
24. North Staffordshire
25. North Lincolnshire and Goole Trust
26. Northumbria Healthcare
27. North Cumbria University
28. Nottinghamshire Healthcare
29. Sherwood Forest Hospitals
30. Southport and Ormskirk Hospital
31. Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen Hospitals
32. United Lincolnshire Hospitals
33. University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay
34. University Hospitals of North Midlands
35. West Hertfordshire Hospitals
36. Wigan and Leigh Trust
37. York Teaching Hospital
Six are believed to be back up and running.
Fylde and Wyre CCG, a group of 19 GP practices in North West England, have advised patients not to contact their GP’s today unless absolutely necessary.
Peel GPs in Greater Manchester also tweeted earlier today: “All Greater Manchester networks down – we cannot access any patient info plz RT.”
What does the NHS hack mean?
Patients are worried that the cyber attack has affected their medical records and personal information in the NHS systems.
An NHS IT worker told the Guardian: "A bitcoin virus pop-up message had been introduced on to the network asking users to pay $300 to be able to access their PCs.
Ransomware behind NHS cyber attack explained
The cyber attack is demanding payment in the form of Bitcoins
A bitcoin virus pop-up message had been introduced on to the network asking users to pay $300 to be able to access their PCs
"You cannot get past this screen. This followed with an internal major incident being declared and advised all trust staff to shut down all PCs in the trust and await further instructions.”
The cyber attack has rendered various clinical and patient systems useless and caused email servers to crash at around 12.30pm.
One doctor in an affected hospital tweeted: “So our hospital is down. We got a message saying your computers are now under their control and pay a certain amount of money. And now everything is gone."
A picture posted by an NHS worker on Twitter reveals the ransom message in the virus ransomware.
At least 37 hospitals have been affected
It reads: “Your important files are encrypted. Many of your documents, photos, videos, databases and other files are no longer accessible because they have been encrypted.
“Maybe you are busy looking for a way to recover your files, but do not waste your time. nobody can recovers your files without our decryption service.”
“You only have 3 days to submit the payment. After that the price will be doubled. Also if you don’t pay in 7 days, you won’t be able to recover your files forever,” it added.
Who carried out the cyber attack?
A spokesperson for NHS Digital said: “The investigation is at an early stage but we believe the malware variant is Wanna Decryptor.
“At this stage we do not have any evidence that patient data has been accessed. We will continue to work with affected organisations to confirm this.”
The National Crime Agency has taken the lead in the investigation and the National Cyber Security Centre confirmed it was aware of the incident.
Europol investigates
A spokesman for the European Union's police agency, Europol, says Britain and Spain have asked for its support as they investigate the ransomware cyberattacks in those countries.
Europe said it was an “unprecedented” attack.
A statement said: “The recent attack is at an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits.
“The Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (JCAT), at EC3 is a group of specialist international cyber investigators and is specially designed to assist in such investigations and will play an important role in supporting the investigation.”
Cobra
Cyber experts have been working through the night to try and identify the source of the massive attack.
Now, there are fears some NHS files may not have been backed up.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd told BBC Breakfast: "I hope the answer is yes, that is the instructions that everybody has received in the past. That is good cyber defence, but I expect, and we will find out over the next few days if there are any holes in that."
"There may be lessons to learn from this but the most important thing now is to disrupt the attack, let's come back to afterwards whether there are lessons to be learned."
She later told Sky News: "It is disappointing that they have been running Windows XP - I know that the Secretary of State for Health has instructed them not to and most have moved off it."
She added: "Where the patient data has been properly backed up, which has been in most cases, work can continue as normal because the patient data can be downloaded and people can continue with their work."
Patients are advised not to contact their GPs unless necessary
Ms Rudd spoke following a Cobra meeting in Whitehall at 2.30pm.
She said: ""We have doubled investment in cyber security to £1.9 billion and established the National Cyber Security Centre as part of GCHQ to act as a single point of contact for major incidents like this.
"The NCSC provides guidance to organisations on how to protect themselves from ransomware, and CareCERT was established in 2015 to provide national cyber support services for the health and care system.
"It is delivered by NHS Digital, working with the NCSC and since 2015, more than £50 million has been made available to support CareCERT services."