NHS Trust Back Online After Cyber Attack

Following the news that IT systems are back up and running at Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust four days after its systems were shut down when a virus, which is suspected to be ransomware, was discovered, Spencer Young, RVP at Imperva commented below.

Spencer Young, RVP at Imperva:

“Ransomware works for the same reasons DDoS works: because people do not put the appropriate defences in place and ultimately, they pay. And since people are willing to pay, cybercriminals will continue to evolve their tools and strategies to enable themselves to target more with reduced effort. Most concerning in terms of this attack is the disruption to patients waiting on critical care. Doubtless people living in the Trust’s region will be very concerned as to what information the hackers have gained access to.

Organizations who hold patient record data should have good backup processes and real time file activity monitoring in place. The first one ensures that no long term damage can be done either on a work station or a file share. Second ensures that infected individual machines cannot affect file servers. The interesting thing about this attack vector is that it shows how simple ransomware is and how easy it is to inflict damage.

We tend to think of hacking as though it was rocket science and hence organizations are always going to be on the losing end. The reality is that hacking is most often simple, and mitigating it requires proper attention and tools which do exist and are within reach of most enterprises.”