A hospital southeast of Paris has been the victim of an ongoing cyber attack since the weekend, with disruption to emergency services and surgeries as hackers demand a ransom of $10 million to call off the digital assault.
The CHSF Hospital Centre in Corbeil-Essonnes, southeast of the French capital, has been the victim of a computer attack that began late Saturday night.
Hackers have reportedly issued a demand of $10 million dollars – in English – for the ransomware attack to be stopped.
Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the hacking of the hospital's computer system and the attempted extortion by an organised gang.
According to the prosecutor's office, the investigation is being spearheaded by the gendarme's Centre for Combating Digital Crime (C3N) division.
This latest cyber attack is once again aimed at a hospital – a sector that has been the target of ransomware attacks for several months.
🔴 FLASH - #CorbeilEssonnes : Le Centre hospitalier Sud Francilien (CHSF) est victime d'une attaque #informatique, perturbant sérieusement son activité.
— FLASH INFO Ile-de-France (@info_Paris_IDF) August 22, 2022
👉 Une demande de rançon de 10 millions de #dollars, formulée en anglais, a été exigée par le ou les hackers. (AFP) #Essonne pic.twitter.com/JH1uN4e37Z
Hospitals under fire from cyberattacks since March
Last April, the computer systems of nine hospitals in France's Grand Est region were compromised by hackers and in March, a hospital in Ajaccio was also the victim of a ransomware cyberattack.
In 2021, hospitals in the Landes, Haute-Garonne and Pyrénées-Atlantiques departments were also victims of cyber attacks, disrupting or shutting down their IT services.
The CHSF hospital in Essonne – which has a one-thousand bed capacity to provide medical care for a population of nearly 600,000 inhabitants in the greater Paris area – triggered a so-called "white plan" emergency operation on Sunday to ensure health services could be maintained.
The hosptial says the attack has rendered inaccessible "all the hospital's business software, storage systems – particularly medical imaging – and the information system relating to patient admissions."
The National Authority for the Security and Defence of Information Systems (Anssi) were "quickly alerted ... and a type of ransomware has been identified".
People who require treatment at the hospital have been redirected to other public hospitals in the Ile-de-France region.
However, for patients already hospitalised at the CHSF, "the medical and technical services – particularly medical biology – are functioning for now, but in a degraded mode".
