Safdarjung Hospital hit by cyberattack after hackers cripple AIIMS

A second top medical facility in the national capital suffered a cyber attack after AIIMS as nearby Safdarjung Hospital reported a hit on its servers. The fresh hacking incident comes as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences Delhi, one of India’s premier hospitals, has been in manual mode with servers down for the 11th day. 

While AIIMS has been crippled and struggling to deal with the rush of patients, the cyber attack at Safdarjung Hospital was not as severe. Unlike AIIMS where medical records of lakhs of patients are at risk of being leaked, Safdarjung attack is unlikely to have the same concern with much of the hospital still running in manual mode. 

“The hackers hit the hospital system some days ago and the server was down for one day”, Safdarjung Hospital Director Dr BL Sherwal was quoted as saying by IANS. He also informed that only some sections of the hospital were affected and the cyber attack was not of a “higher degree”.

Meanwhile, the AIIMS cyber attack is still to be resolved. The eHospital data was restored but the system is still being sanitised. The records of 3 crore patients are at risk. There were reports that hackers had demanded Rs 200 crore ransom from AIIMS authorities but they were refuted by Delhi Police.

Several investigative agencies have joined the probe. The incident is being looked at as an “act of terror”. The involvement of Chinese and Korean hackers is suspected behind the ransomware attack. 

At Safdarjung Hospital, the issue was rectified and data was secured by the administration along with a National Informatics Centre (NIC) team. The servers are now operating properly. 

READ | Android security scare: Lakhs of Samsung, LG smartphones exposed to malware risk

(With inputs from IANS)

A second top medical facility in the national capital suffered a cyber attack after AIIMS as nearby Safdarjung Hospital reported a hit on its servers. The fresh hacking incident comes as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences Delhi, one of India’s premier hospitals, has been in manual mode with servers down for the 11th day. 

While AIIMS has been crippled and struggling to deal with the rush of patients, the cyber attack at Safdarjung Hospital was not as severe. Unlike AIIMS where medical records of lakhs of patients are at risk of being leaked, Safdarjung attack is unlikely to have the same concern with much of the hospital still running in manual mode. 

“The hackers hit the hospital system some days ago and the server was down for one day”, Safdarjung Hospital Director Dr BL Sherwal was quoted as saying by IANS. He also informed that only some sections of the hospital were affected and the cyber attack was not of a “higher degree”.

Meanwhile, the AIIMS cyber attack is still to be resolved. The eHospital data was restored but the system is still being sanitised. The records of 3 crore patients are at risk. There were reports that hackers had demanded Rs 200 crore ransom from AIIMS authorities but they were refuted by Delhi Police.

Several investigative agencies have joined the probe. The incident is being looked at as an “act of terror”. The involvement of Chinese and Korean hackers is suspected behind the ransomware attack. 

At Safdarjung Hospital, the issue was rectified and data was secured by the administration along with a National Informatics Centre (NIC) team. The servers are now operating properly. 

READ | Android security scare: Lakhs of Samsung, LG smartphones exposed to malware risk

(With inputs from IANS)