By now our UK readers are well aware of the shutdown due to malware starting Sunday 30 Oct, only resolved today, of the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Trust hospitals: Diana, Princess of Wales; Goole and District; Scunthorpe General.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nhsalert-940×445.png” thumb_width=”300″ /] (NHS website via Krebsonsecurity.com, click to enlarge)

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/nhsalert2.png” thumb_width=”300″ /] (NHS website, click to enlarge)

It is estimated that it affected approximately 1,000 patients over the three shutdown days. Most patients were diverted to neighboring hospitals, according to The Guardian.

The Health Services Journal (paywalled) broke as an exclusive the NHS‘ high priority warning to providers around the country. Yet it seemed equivocal. According to The Sun, while NHS Digital marked the message as ‘severity: high’ and warned that “… we would like to remind all users of the need for proactive measures to reduce the likelihood of infection and minimise the impacts of any compromise.”, it was tempered with “We have no evidence that this is anything other than a local isolated incident but we will continue to keep health and care organisations informed.” Also according to The Sun, the Department of Health has noted that this has not been the first incident.

As our Readers know, US and Canadian hospitals and healthcare organizations have been subject of late to malware and its latest iteration, ransomware, with a large outbreak this summer. (more…)