A cyberattack on the Clinical Hospital affects the Laboratory, Pharmacy and emergency services
A cyberattack on the Clinical Hospital affects the Laboratory, Pharmacy and emergency services
Non-urgent operations, outpatient consultations and extractions have been descheduled and oncology radiotherapy sessions have been postponed
Drafting
05/03/2023 - 14.47Updated05/03/2023 - 23.02
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A ransomware-type computer attack at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona affects the center's Laboratory, Pharmacy and emergency services .
The cyberattack was notified at 11:17 this Sunday at noon to the Cybersecurity Agency of Catalonia. Since then, work has been done to find out the scope and solve the incident.
The Clinic has reported that they have coordinated with Salut and the other hospitals in the city to attend to emergencies, medical transport and urgent codes (such as strokes or heart attacks). At the moment, patients already admitted have not had to be transferred to other centres. On the other hand, new patients are referred to other centers.
In addition, as reported by the hospital, for Monday, all urgent and hospitalization activity will be maintained, as well as home hospitalization, day hospitals, radiology, endoscopic tests, radiological examinations, dialysis and outpatient pharmacy.
Instead, non-urgent surgeries, outpatient consultations and extractions will be descheduled. Oncological radiotherapy sessions have also been postponed .
"Tot a mà"
Some patients have reported that the system started to give problems on Saturday night and sources from the Clinic have confirmed to ACN that the problems started in the morning.
"We don't provide the scope. It's a risk for people who can come here to be treated and that they can't be well taken care of ," complains Mireia Gómez, a nurse in the Transfusion service. According to her, IT managers are trying to fix "all the problems", but they don't know when they will be able to fix it yet:
"They tell us it might take two days or maybe a week... for now we have to work like this."
According to this nurse and relatives of patients consulted by the ACN, health workers cannot access the history of the people they care for and have to do it "everything by hand" .
This is creating some difficulties because, for example, they have to trust patients with regard to their pathologies, such as drug allergies , Gómez indicates. And adds:
"Also, on a Sunday, there are only doctors on call ."
Paula Fortuny, who arrived Saturday night at the Clinic's emergency room with her mother, explains that there were already problems. During this Sunday, however, he says that there were no large crowds of patients or chaos, but he does describe health workers going up and down stairs throughout the day "to deliver analytical reports".
What is a ransomware cyberattack?
The attack suffered by the Clinic is of the ransomware type , which consists of seizing an organization's computer files and asking for a ransom to release them .
This malware renders infected systems and files unusable . Victims are unable to access files on their computer devices as documents are either fully or partially encrypted and often the system is also inaccessible.
Any company, entity or public institution that works with computer systems is exposed. And, in the ransom, a payment in cryptocurrencies is usually demanded.
It is not the first time it has happened in Catalonia. In October 2021, there was a cyberattack at the Autonomous University of Barcelona that affected the entire virtual environment of the center.
In October last year, a ransomware cyber attack also affected three hospitals and some CAPs in Baix Llobregat and Barcelona.
Non-urgent operations, outpatient consultations and extractions have been descheduled and oncology radiotherapy sessions have been postponed
Drafting
05/03/2023 - 14.47Updated05/03/2023 - 23.02
share to facebook
share to twitter
A ransomware-type computer attack at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona affects the center's Laboratory, Pharmacy and emergency services .
The cyberattack was notified at 11:17 this Sunday at noon to the Cybersecurity Agency of Catalonia. Since then, work has been done to find out the scope and solve the incident.
The Clinic has reported that they have coordinated with Salut and the other hospitals in the city to attend to emergencies, medical transport and urgent codes (such as strokes or heart attacks). At the moment, patients already admitted have not had to be transferred to other centres. On the other hand, new patients are referred to other centers.
In addition, as reported by the hospital, for Monday, all urgent and hospitalization activity will be maintained, as well as home hospitalization, day hospitals, radiology, endoscopic tests, radiological examinations, dialysis and outpatient pharmacy.
Instead, non-urgent surgeries, outpatient consultations and extractions will be descheduled. Oncological radiotherapy sessions have also been postponed .
"Tot a mà"
Some patients have reported that the system started to give problems on Saturday night and sources from the Clinic have confirmed to ACN that the problems started in the morning.
"We don't provide the scope. It's a risk for people who can come here to be treated and that they can't be well taken care of ," complains Mireia Gómez, a nurse in the Transfusion service. According to her, IT managers are trying to fix "all the problems", but they don't know when they will be able to fix it yet:
"They tell us it might take two days or maybe a week... for now we have to work like this."
According to this nurse and relatives of patients consulted by the ACN, health workers cannot access the history of the people they care for and have to do it "everything by hand" .
This is creating some difficulties because, for example, they have to trust patients with regard to their pathologies, such as drug allergies , Gómez indicates. And adds:
"Also, on a Sunday, there are only doctors on call ."
Paula Fortuny, who arrived Saturday night at the Clinic's emergency room with her mother, explains that there were already problems. During this Sunday, however, he says that there were no large crowds of patients or chaos, but he does describe health workers going up and down stairs throughout the day "to deliver analytical reports".
What is a ransomware cyberattack?
The attack suffered by the Clinic is of the ransomware type , which consists of seizing an organization's computer files and asking for a ransom to release them .
This malware renders infected systems and files unusable . Victims are unable to access files on their computer devices as documents are either fully or partially encrypted and often the system is also inaccessible.
Any company, entity or public institution that works with computer systems is exposed. And, in the ransom, a payment in cryptocurrencies is usually demanded.
It is not the first time it has happened in Catalonia. In October 2021, there was a cyberattack at the Autonomous University of Barcelona that affected the entire virtual environment of the center.
In October last year, a ransomware cyber attack also affected three hospitals and some CAPs in Baix Llobregat and Barcelona.
