IT damage at university hospital "immense" after hacker attack
Following the hacker attack at the beginning of October, Frankfurt University Hospital has to completely reorganize its IT. According to the Medical Director, Professor Jürgen Graf, a three-digit number of specialists are working on dealing with the cyber attack, building interim solutions and setting up the systems again. It will be months before everything is up and running again without restrictions," Graf told the German Press Agency.
An unauthorized access attempt was discovered at Hesse's largest hospital on 6 October. One day later, the hospital was disconnected from the Internet for security reasons. "What happened to us is the worst-case scenario with the least expected damage." No data had been encrypted or leaked, no claims had been made and patient care was ongoing - "but the impact on IT is still immense".
According to Graf, the biggest problem at the moment is accounting. It has been possible to pay the salaries of around 7500 employees. However, it will probably be some time before it is possible to invoice services rendered in the usual way again or to pay incoming invoices electronically. At present, invoices are sometimes faxed and liabilities are paid by paper remittance slip. The telephone is also experiencing a renaissance. "It's like the 80s."
In the hospital, there are computers defined as "red" - they may only be used within the hospital - and computers marked "green" - only these may communicate with the outside world. According to Graf, the electronic patient file could help to avoid such a situation in other hospitals. If the data of all patients were stored in a central location, this server would have to be heavily secured. "But this would reduce the number of potential targets," he explained.
Despite the successful continuation of patient care, the IT damage at Frankfurt University Hospital after the hacker attack is immense. The current challenge lies in accounting issues, as electronic payment methods and invoicing systems are temporarily unavailable, leading to a resurgence of faxes and paper remittances.
Source: www.dpa.com
