Barcelona’s Hospital Clinic ransomware cyberattack
A ransomware cyberattack on Barcelona’s Hospital Clinic is said to have originated ‘from outside Spain’.
According to two experts today, Monday, March 6, the ransomware cyberattack that hit Barcelona’s Hospital Clinic yesterday, Sunday 5, originated from outside Spain. This was announced in a press conference by Sergi Marcen, the Secretary for Telecommunications and Digital Transformation of the medical facility.
His claim was backed up by both Dr Antoni Castells, the hospital’s medical director, and Tomas Roy, the general director of the Catalan Cybersecurity Agency. The incident: “is not an attack that has come from the Spanish State, it comes from outside Spain”, they stated jointly.
The three men described the attack as ‘complex and transversal’ and explained that it came from a cybercrime company called Ransom House. “Normally, Ransom House carries out these types of attacks in exchange for money, but so far they have not been in contact”, said Marcen.
These attacks normally consist of disabling a computer system in exchange for a payment to recover the information, but Marcen assured that “there will be no negotiation to pay”.
As a result of the attack, about 150 elective surgeries, 500 extractions and some 300 external consultations are still unscheduled. Urgent cases such as heart attacks or strokes will be redirected to other medical facilities. “We cannot access the information of the patients”, they explained.
Sunday’s attack affected communication between hospital departments and for now, it is not possible to access histories and other patient data, although Castells has assured that this information “is not affected”.
It is not yet known to what extent the cyberattack could have affected the data, although they assured that “it has been a complex attack, we have evidence that data has been leaked, and we are in the process of analyzing it”.
Castells warned that they do not know exactly when they will be able to recover full activity. “The contingency plan allows us to work many days like this, but we hope it won’t be necessary”. As of midday on Sunday, the centre launched the contingency plan, because it…
