Belgian hospital suffers cyberattack

hello folks,

Bleeping Computer indicates that a Belgian Hospital suffered a cyberattack.

Belgian hospital AZ Monica was forced to shut down all servers, cancel scheduled procedures, and transfer critical patients earlier today due to a cyberattack.

The hospital, which operates campuses in Antwerp and Deurne, disconnected all servers at 6:32 AM after its systems were hit.

The cyberattack also forced the hospital to suspend all scheduled procedures on Tuesday, as the emergency department continues to operate at reduced capacity, even though emergency medical services and intensive care transport units remain offline.

According to the article, urgent care is continuing, but is very slow, and new patients are being turned away.

Seven patients who required critical care were transferred to other hospitals with Red Cross assistance. Hospital officials added that all remaining patients are staying at AZ Monica and receiving necessary care, but warned that registration procedures for new patients will be slower, since employees “have to register a lot of things on paper.”

From what we can tell, there are no deaths, yet.

I hope we do not have any because of this stupidity, and I hope that whoever attacked the hospital comes forward or turns themselves in to authorities. I’m doing something called wishful thinking, but I can do that.

The article continues:

AZ Monica did not specify the nature of the incident or indicate whether it involved ransomware, a common threat targeting healthcare organizations worldwide, seeing that they often store sensitive patient data, making them attractive targets for double-extortion attacks.

The final paragraph may be a little concerning though. It says:

However, according to local media, unconfirmed reports from within the hospital suggest the attackers might have demanded a ransom, but these claims are yet to be confirmed by hospital officials and the public prosecutor.

I guess we need to see what media is saying and if we hear anything, we’ll report on it.

Meanwhile, the article is titled Belgian hospital AZ Monica shuts down servers after cyberattack if this is of interest to you.