AIIMS says some data restored after cyber attack, services will take time to resume
Police have said that the hospital authorities have received no ransomware demand, even as the attack was earlier suspected to have been made for that purpose.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi on Tuesday said that the eHospital data has been restored on its servers, six days after they were hacked in a cyber attack, reported ANI.
Restoration of the online services was taking time as the attack involved a large volume of data and multiple servers, the country’s premier state-run medical college and hospital said in a statement.
“All hospital services, including outpatient, in-patient, laboratories, etc continue to run on manual mode,” it added.
Due to the cyber attack on November 23, several patient care services at the institute had been disrupted. The National Informatics Centre had said that the incident was a ransomware attack, in which hackers demand money to restore access to online services.
The police, however, said on Monday that AIIMS authorities had not got any ransomware demand, reported The Times of India. The police had registered a case of extortion and cyber terrorism on November 25.
On Tuesday, AIIMS said that it was taking measures to improve its cyber security. These measures include directing faculty and staff members to install new anti-virus softwares.
The hospital hospital authorities have suspended two system analysts for alleged procedural lapses. They have also been issued showcause notices for alleged dereliction of duty.
AIIMS has sought support from the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-IN, to restore its digital services. CERT-IN is the nodal agency within the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology that deals with cyber security threats.
Meanwhile, Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal said that the incident raises questions about cybersecurity in the country.
“In 2020 PM [Narendra] Modi had announced that we will soon have a new cyber security policy,” he tweeted. “It’s been two years and we’re still waiting!”