Britain’s National Health Service Trust(NHS) has turned extremely vigilant these days after it learned from a security firm’s report that one of the Trust hospitals was cyber attacked 5 times in 2016 with ransomware. As the hackers failed to get into the database of the NHS Trust no money was exchanged between the cyber criminals and the hospital officials and so data remained secured.
Note- Ransomware is a software that locks computer database until a ransom is paid to the hacker or the malware developer.
According to our Cybersecurity Insiders sources, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was targeted unsuccessfully 5 times in 2016. The intention of the hackers was to hack the database, take data into custody and demand money. But as the database was being handled by the encryption tools of a third party, data remained isolated from the hackers.
“It’s going to a scary year for the entire staff of NHS if left unattended,” said Dr. Kasper Rasmussen, a professor at the Oxford University’s computer science department. He predicted that hackers will re-hit the database in this year if the officials of NHS fail to take necessary preventive measures against cyber threats.
At the NHS Trust’s annual general meeting last year, patients raised their voice against the safety of the NHS Trust’s database which hosts the respective data of the patients.
Peter Knight, the Chief Information and Digital Officer of the trust responded that the authorities of the Oxford University Hospital will remain vigilant from now on. He added that the Hospital Foundation is due to receive up to £10 million of government funding to continue its work of digitizing patient care on a secure note.
