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Ransomware disruptions contributed to a patient death, NHS finds

Date:
Thu, 26 Jun 2025 10:00:23 +0000

Description:
The ransomware attack disrupted care and harmed a patient.

FULL STORY

Ransomware attacks are devastating for victims, but this has now reached a 
new and tragic level, with the UKs National Health Service (NHS) confirming
that an attack on London hospitals in 2024 that forced ambulances to be
diverted and disrupted blood testing has contributed to a patient's death. 

This attack targeted Synnovis, a London-based pathology service, and
cybercriminal group Qilin caused severe disruptions to the blood-testing
services, and the delay in a blood test was a contributing factor to the 
death of a patient. 

Around 800 operations and 700 outpatient appointments were cancelled or
rescheduled due to the attack, and personal information such as names, dates
of birth, NHS numbers, and even blood test data is suspected to have been
compromised and published in the incident .

Tragic consequences 

Cybercriminals target critical infrastructure such as hospitals because they
are likely to pay ransoms in order to get services up and running with 
minimal disruptions in order to protect patients, but this, of course,
requires a level of disruption no matter what. 

One patient sadly died unexpectedly during the cyber-attack, confirmed the
Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. 

As is standard practice when this happens, we undertook a detailed review of
their care. The patient safety incident investigation identified a number of
contributing factors that led to the patients death. This included a long 
wait for a blood test result due to the cyber-attack impacting pathology
services at the time. We have met with the patients family, and shared the
findings of the safety investigation with them. 

Its said that Qilin, the ransomware gang, demanded $50 million from Synnovis
in return for the stolen data, but reports suggest that Synnovis either
refused or failed to pay the ransom, and the data was then published online. 

This is in line with the Governments ransomware payment ban for public
organizations, which aims to dissuade ransomware gangs from targeting public
services. 

 Via The Record

======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/ransomware-disruptions-contributed-to-a
-patient-death-nhs-finds

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