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LAST UPDATE | 15 May 2021
HSE CHIEF PAUL Reid has said that “safe and steady progress” has been made overnight in dealing with the fallout of a “sophisticated” ransomware attack that the Government called “possibly the most significant cyber attack on the Irish State”.
The HSE was made aware of the attack in the early hours of Friday, and shut down all national and local IT systems yesterday in order to protect them from encryption by attackers.
Because computers are shut down as a precautionary measure, some health services have been affected: the extent of the disruption varies from each hospital and service.
The Covid-19 vaccination programme has not been affected by the attack, and people should attend those appointments as normal. The HSE is still planning to administer between 260,000 and 280,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses next week.
Reid has encouraged the public to continue to register for a vaccine appointment through the online portal, saying that the system is safe to use. People aged between 50 and 69 are eligible to register, with information on those between 40 and 49 expected to be released next week.
Covid test results and contact-tracing services have been successfully restored after being disrupted yesterday.
Anyone who has symptoms of Covid-19 is asked to self-isolate and contact your GP, who may advise you to attend one of the walk-in Covid-19 test centres.
However, the Department of Health has said that “due to the current disruption of the HSE IT systems” daily Covid-19 figures are not available. Backdated figures will be published “when possible”, a spokesperson said.
Not paying a ransom
The HSE yesterday confirmed that a ransom has been sought but said it will not be paid, in line with State policy.
When asked today about whether the HSE would pay out a ransom to ensure patient data was not released by the attackers, Reid did not confirm but said that the HSE was working with cybersecurity experts to ensure patient data is not released.
However, Reid also said that due to how patient data is stored across multiple systems, there was currently no indication of how much patient data has been accessed by the attackers.
“We’re now assessing across each system, what level of data was encrypted [by attackers], what level of data may have been compromised,” Reid told Saturday with Katie Hannon.
“So that’s still a process that we’re going through before we move to the recovery phase.”
The systems were hit by a Conti ransomware attack, where attackers enter into a computer system and study how it works, before compromising anything they can and announcing their attack to the victim.
Reid said it was “quite a sophisticated” attack, a “major incident” for the health service, and is a “human-operated” cyber attack.
According to Reid, teams have made progress in identifying the nature of the attack and some of the potential impacts that the ransomware attack has caused.
The HSE’s backup systems are currently safe, with Reid saying that teams are assessing whether or not there has been any impact on the data stored within the backup systems.
Minister of State for Public Procurement and eGovernment Ossian Smyth told RTÉ News yesterday that the attack was not espionage, and that it was an international attack.
“This is a very significant attack, possibly the most significant cyber attack on the Irish State,” Smyth said.
He added that the motive is to encrypt private data, and threaten to publish the data if a ransom is not paid.
Update on appointments
Appointments were cancelled by a number of hospitals yesterday and thousands more could be cancelled next week.
In a statement released this afternoon, the Saolta Group of Hospitals said the cyber attack “continues to have a considerable impact on hospital services”.
The Saolta Group covers the following hospitals:
Maternity services and dialysis treatment will go ahead. Patients should also attend their chemotherapy appointments unless contacted and advised otherwise.
The following cancellations have been confirmed:
The statement noted: “Patients can expect significant delays in the Emergency Departments and Roscommon Injury Unit as existing IT systems are not in use and the manual workarounds in place are time-consuming.
“We ask patients to contact their GP or GP Out Of Hours Service in the first instance if their health problem is not urgent.
“Where possible patients should bring their existing patient number or board number with them when they come to the hospital. This number appears on appointment letters, test results, blood test results.
“We would like to thank our patients for their understanding at this difficult time.”
The UL Hospitals Group has also issued an update today, saying that a majority of outpatient appointments and elective procedures will go ahead as scheduled on Monday 17 May.
The UL Group covers:
The group is advising that patients attend for their appointments and procedures unless contacted directly by the hospital and advised otherwise.
“We apologise to patients who are experiencing delays and disruptions to our service,” said the group in a statement.
The emergency department at UHL will continue to operate but currently is very busy. They are currently urging all members of the public to consider all care options and only attend the ED in an emergency.
Non urgent patients may face significant delays, according to the UL Hospitals Group. Injury units are still in operation in Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s.
The Maternity Emergency Unit remains available 24/7 and the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit remains appointment only.
The UL Hospitals Group also said that there may be further disruption next week.
The Dublin Midlands Hospital Group has released this update about cancelled appointments.
See statement below from @DMHospitalGroup regarding the current situation in our hospitals following the ransomware attack on the @HSELive IT systems. Updates will be posted as they become available. We thank our patients & the public for their understanding at this time. pic.twitter.com/02KZyDrSN6
— Dublin Midlands Hospital Group (@DMHospitalGroup) May 14, 2021
Patients have been advised to check the websites and Twitter accounts of the HSE and the hospital group in their area for the latest updates.
National Cyber Security Centre
Communications Minister Eamon Ryan and junior minister Ossian Smyth were both briefed by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) this morning, with the agency saying that their full resources are being put to supporting the HSE in its response to the attack.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications today said that the NCSC’s full resources “have been committed to supporting the HSE in its response to the cyber attack, and the NCSC is liaising with international partners and third-party contractors”.
“This work will continue throughout the weekend with the focus on supporting the HSE’s recovery process in order to minimise disruption to services.”
Speaking yesterday evening, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said it would take “some days” to assess the impact of the cyber attack.
He was also clear that no ransom would be paid, and said that it would be dealt with in a “methodical way”.
Security sources have said that the most likely suspects for the attack are criminals who are ‘state actors’.
“This is an almost daily occurrence, and the HSE were targeted this time. In terms of cyber security the most difficult thing is that these hackers are state backed and are most likely from North Korea, Russia or China,” a cyber security source said.
With reporting by Gráinne Ní Aodha and Tadgh McNally
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Congratulations and a fantastic idea.
I only wish this was around when I was in school.
I spent years typing in basic code from computer weekly for simple games, and there was nobody else doing it at the time and I dropped it after school. Would have taken a different path if this had been around.
Well done, hobby today, career tomorrow.
perhaps something like this could be done for adults too? i know id be interested
@Abi, I just did a crash course in scratch programming, you can download it free from scratch.mit.edu, check out a few videos on how to do it and you can look at what others have made and how they made it, and you can copy and evolve their code, ideas etc.. works a bit like Lego, the more you play with it the better you get. It’s quite basic at the start but you can do some cool stuff once you get good
Fair f*cks to him. Also, there’s Enda Kenny, as usual embarrassing everyone like your cheesy Dad at Christmas dinner.
Well done James. I’ll be bringing my young fella along to the cork dojo in September. he’s only 7 but already made a simple game and a calculator in Python :)
Well done, I’m firmly convinced everyone has their ‘speciality’, be that an academic thing, a caring thing, or an arty thing, etc…all should be applauded in equal measure, all are of equal importance, in the greater scheme of things. This is a superb idea, fair fu.ks to you, you’ll go far and so you should’
A simple solution to a complex problem. Brilliant. Pity this couldn’t be encompassed in the schools curriculum and genuinely teach this stuff to the kids a few times a week, not for an hour a week by someone who’s a few years from retirement and afraid of computers. He’s right, he and others like him are filling a void in our educational system that has been there for years. The trouble is now that he’s doing it, the void will still be left there.
Great idea, we’ll done James.
Great success story congratulations James . Great to see someone who enjoys teaching and passing on a skill that could be life changing for some of the children .maybe the next bill gates is out there amongst them. Continued success for the future
That picture was taken at a special sitting of the CoderDojo which took place in the Dail. We are the first country to hold a “class” in their parliament buildings as far as I gather. CoderDojo is amazing and it’s scary how much some the kids know at them. God help the lecturers in third level when the kids eventually meet them.
Would love to be able to attend something like this. Shame I’m well out of school :(
absolutely brilliant idea and badly needed in Ireland. got to say the pic of cash-in-kenny made me sick because this stuff should be part of the everyday curriculum imo. govt are totally dragging their feet on this to the detriment of Ireland.
I think dojo came from the Japanese meaning of “place to learn” and then coder as in they are training to become “Ninja” Coders. I would imagine it was an interesting process picking that name.
I agree this is a great idea. I think it should be kept outside the education system and sponsored/funded like a charity. This will allow the people running it full freedom to let it develop in any direction it wants. I love the idea that google has given it a facility to use. The kick a kid must get out of walking into that building like that. It gives it a real buzz feeling.
I never thought of it that way, I guess you have a point there Robert, I still think if these folks are giving up their time to fill a void in our education system, the least the state can do is help them, maybe with equipment or premises.
I have to ask, where did you get the name CoderDojo from?
I cannot understand why you got a single down vote, why would people be against such an overwhelmingly positive idea? Does anybody stand to lose anything?
people scrolling down on mobile devices tapping the thumbs up/down by accident, I suspect as much as 50% of the ups and down’s here are unintentional.
Such an uplifting story. Well done and may you continue to grow.
This is a great idea, and it has really taken off. Well done James!
Well done. A brilliant idea.
Would work for all ages
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