Cybersecurity

Hack That Crippled UK Hospitals Highlights Growing Threat to NHS

  • Health care is the most-targeted industry for cyber extortion
  • Latest attack targeted a “life-critical” supplier to UK’s NHS

Out of all industries, health-care providers were the most targeted by ransomware gangs last year.

Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg
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In June of last year, a Russian cybercrime gang called BlackCat hacked the Barts Health NHS Trust, a part of the UK’s National Health Service that operates several hospitals in London, and published some of it online in an extortion attempt.

Last month, a different group, called INC Ransom, published a huge trove of data — three terabytes’ worth — culled from a hack of the NHS Dumfries and Galloway, an NHS board overseeing a region of Scotland for the health service.