The Health Service Ransom Attack Will Cost Ireland As Much As €100m

A ransomware attack on the Irish healthcare system in 2021 has caused €80 million in damages and counting, as the government continues to notify victims of the incident that their personal information was illegally accessed and copied. As many as 100,000 people had their personal data stolen during the attack.

The figures come from a letter from HSE chief information officer Fran Thompson sent to the Irish Aontú party leader, Peadar Tóibín. This comes months after the Department of Health said in February the attack could cost up to €100m.

Now, Thompson has confirmed that the costs reached €42m ($43.97m) in 2021 and almost €39m ($40.83m) recently this year. “Ireland has a very capable national cybersecurity center and a well-oiled CSIRT team that engages the public/private sector,” said Andrew Barratt, vice president at risk management firm Coalfire. “If the cost does continue to escalate to €100m, we have to look at that in perspective and its equivalent to everyone in the Republic of Ireland having been defrauded by €20.”

According to The Irish Times, Tóibín described the costs were “enormous,” and asked for the government to complete a comprehensive assessment of the impact caused by the breach.

Russian ransomware group Conti claimed credit for the spring 2021 attack that began when the attackers sent a phishing email with a malicious Microsoft Excel file attached and ended with nearly 80% of HSE data under malicious encryption, including medical and banking data.

The attack is understood to have been generated by a malicious Microsoft Excel file that was delivered via a phishing email.

According to a December 2021 report, the file was opened at an HSE workstation in March 2021. The malware would have been latent for two months before the breach, which was reportedly discovered in May, two months later. 

“Healthcare continues to be a target of attacks given their enormous attack surface across critical applications, cloud environments and IoT devices,” commented Dave Gerry, CEO at penetration testing firm Bugcrowd. Making sure that critical applications, devices and systems are secure should remain the main priority for healthcare security professionals. “Bad actors understand the critical nature of the systems supporting healthcare organisations and the human impact behind it, leading to an increased likelihood of ransom payments,” Gerry said.

Irish Times:       Bank Info Security:     Infosecurity Magazine:    HeadTopics:   

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