A ransomware attack is, as experts consider, one of the most serious computer threats for both companies and institutions. And just a week ago the Irish health service was forced to stop its computer systems (which include more than 80,000 computers) after it was the target of an attack, by what those responsible have come to call “international criminals ”.
The attack, and the stoppage of computer systems, led to the cancellation of appointments and surgeries in several hospitals. And the outage lasted a few days, leading Ossian Smyth, the Green Party’s Minister of State for Communications, to describe it as “the most serious cybercrime attack against the Irish state.”
The Irish Ministry of Health is also the target of a cyber attack
Furthermore, just a week ago, the Irish Department of Health was the target of an attempted cyberattack , much like the ransomware attack that brought the country’s public health service to a standstill.
As the Irish government commented in a statement, “the National Cybersecurity Center saw on Thursday an attempted cyberattack against the Ministry of Health”, which even partially suspended its computer system “as a precautionary measure”.
The statement, in turn, indicates that “this attempted attack continues to be investigated, but it appears to be a ransomware attack similar to the one that affected” the Public Health Service, he added.
Last February, for example, the Dax hospital in France was the target of a cyberattack that managed to stop all computer interactions in the hospital, thereby paralyzing the different relationships between services.
In fact, another French hospital suffered the same attack, paralyzing its telephone systems and forcing it to postpone surgical operations. Half a year earlier, in September, an attack on a German hospital caused a crash in computer systems and indirectly the death of a woman .
That same month, another attack was able to paralyze a chain of more than 250 hospitals and clinics in the United States.
Something similar happened with Colonial Pipeline, the operator of the huge US pipeline, who had to restart their systems after they were paralyzed at the beginning of the month. And it caused large lines of vehicles at gas stations due to distribution problems and purchases due to driver panic, which wiped out stocks at thousands of service stations. While the software company SolarWinds also suffered a major hack.
All of these attacks, as experts point out, underscore concerns about the vulnerability of certain critical infrastructures to groups of hackers and other digital criminals.
In an online conference organized by the British National Cybersecurity Center, Dominic Raab, Foreign Minister, has called for the formation of an international coalition to strengthen cybersecurity against state agents and criminals who “seek to subvert democratic norms.”
Raab has even accused Russian entities of trying to steal vital research on the coronavirus from British, Canadian and American laboratories.
What is a ransomware attack?
Cyberattacks using ransomware are a phenomenon that, as we are seeing, has exploded in recent years. It is an attack that exploits security holes in a company to encrypt and lock its computer systems, demanding a ransom to allow them to be unlocked .
In other words, it consists of an attack that involves encrypting all the content on the computers of an organization or a victim. The hackers then demand a ransom to provide the key that should allow decryption and thereby regain access to the files.
