London hospitals hackers publish stolen blood test data

The fallout from the Synnovis hack has been one of the worst cyber-attacks ever in the UK with more than 1000 hospital and GP appointments and operations affected by the disruption to pathology services.

The ransomware hackers infiltrated the computer systems of the company used by two NHS trusts in London and encrypted vital information making IT systems useless.

As is often the case with these gangs, they also downloaded as much private data as they could to further extort the company for a ransom payment in Bitcoin.

It is not known how much money the hackers demanded from Synnovis or if the company entered negotiations. But the fact Qilin has published some, potentially all, of the data means they did not pay.

Law enforcement agencies around the world regularly urge victims of ransomware not to pay as it fuels the criminal enterprise and does not guarantee that the criminals will do as they promise.

Ransomware expert Brett Callow from Emsisoft said healthcare organisations were increasingly being targeted as the hackers knew that they could cause a lot of harm and sometimes get a big pay day.

“Cybercriminals go where the money is and, unfortunately, the money is in attacking the healthcare sector. And since United Health Group reportedly paid a $22m [£17.3m] ransom earlier this year, the sector is more squarely in the crosshairs than ever before,” he said.

On Tuesday night Qilin spoke to the BBC on an encrypted messaging service and said they had deliberately targeted Synnovis as a way to punish the UK for not helping enough in an unspecified war.

Qilin, which has a well-established record of attempting to extort money, claimed in this instance it had carried out a cyber-attack as a protest.

“We are very sorry for the people who were suffered because of it. Herewith we don’t consider ourselves guilty and we ask you don’t blame us in this situation. Blame your government.”

Qilin’s claims of having an activist motive are largely being met with scepticism.

On their darknet site they have leaked stolen data from other healthcare organisations, schools, companies and councils around the world for money.