Hospital Infected With Virus, Surgeries Cancelled!

Long ago itself, we have seen that Cyber security issues are not any more IT problem, but even it is a matter for doctors and patients!Human safety is under risks now, since most of the medical equipment are connected, and data networking enabled!Computer viruses cannot distinguish a laptop and a hospital machine that delivers or in charge of critical treatment for patients. Moreover, since the criticality is very high, malicious criminals could purposefully target hospital machines for blackmailing and ransom money.In the latest incident, multiple hospitals in Lincolnshire, England has impacted with a virus infection that disrupted the National Health Service (NHS) network on 30th October 2016. It forces the hospitals to cancel hundreds of operations, outpatient appointments, and diagnostic procedures, as the systems were out of service.“Major incident” bright-red alert warning is posted on Northern Lincolnshire and NHS Foundation Trust (NLAG). They said its systems in Scunthorpe and Grimsby infected with a virus on 30th October. The incident pushed the trust to shut down all the major systems within its shared IT network to “isolate and destroy” the virus.The incident took place after the US and Canada declared a joint cyber alert that warns hospitals and other institutions against a surge in blackmail attacks that affect workstations with Ransomware that encrypts data and demand ransom for it to be unlocked.