AIIMS server down for 11th day; now Safdarjung Hospital reports cyber attack - Details here

Safdarjung Hospital has reported cyber-attack 11 days after AIIMS server went down and attacked with ransomware.

Image Source: ANI

New Delhi: Safdarjung Hospital officials on Saturday, December 3, 2022, said the hospital was under a cyber-attack, but the damage was not as severe as it had been for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital. According to the officials, the hospital runs OPD services manually therefore it had not been severe. Meanwhile, the AIIMS server remained down for the 11th day today. 

Medical Superintendent Safdarjung Hospital Dr BL Sherwal said, "There was a cyberattack. Our server was also down in November for a single day, but data was secured. It was handled by IT, National informatics Centre (NIC) which revived the systems."

Dr Sherwal further said that the cyber attack wasn`t ransomware. Another official from the hospital said that IP was blocked. The ANI team contacted the IT of the hospital also for more information but they didn`t respond.

"In November only for one day, we heard that server is down for some time but later they got revived. Most of the time we do our work manually," said a Sr Resident doctor. 

According to the AIIMS Delhi, services are to start in the middle of next week manually meanwhile approx 3000 computers have been scanned and antivirus has also been uploaded for future safety. But internet services are still blocked and no further information has been shared by the administration with the hospital faculty and staff.

According to the AIIMS Delhi sources, two analysts were suspended on Monday for breach of data and more are under the radar. A special cell of Delhi police launched an investigation into the alleged malware attack at AIIMS Delhi. Earlier on Tuesday, the AIIMS also issued a statement that the e-Hospital data has been restored.

"The e-Hospital data has been restored on the servers. The network is being sanitised before the services can be restored. The process is taking some time due to the volume of data and the large number of servers/computers for the hospital services. Measures are being taken for cyber security."

"All hospital services, including outpatient, in-patient, laboratories, etc continue to run on manual mode," it said further. 

"The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also joined the investigation. The India Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), Delhi Police, Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) representatives are already probing the incident," sources told ANI. 

The laboratory information system (LIS) database and other dependent databases have been restored.