AIIMS cyberattack: eHospital data restored, network being sanitised

According to AIIMS, measures are being taken for strengthening cyber security

According to All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) Delhi, the eHospital data has been restored on servers, after it had been under ransomware attack for seven days. However, the hospital services are still running in manual mode as the network is being sanitised before the services can be restored, the AIIMS authorities said in a statement.

"The process is taking some time due to the volume of data and large number of servers/computers for the hospital services. Measures are being taken for cyber security," said the statement.

“All hospital services, including outpatient, in-patient, laboratories, etc continue to run on manual mode,” the statement added.

The primary and first backup servers of AIIMS Delhi were found to be down on Wednesday morning, November 23 at around 7 am. It was later found out to be a ransomware attack. The cyberattack froze everyday work at AIIMS, including appointments and registration, billing, laboratory report generation.

As per media reports, hackers have allegedly demanded approximately Rs 200 crore in cryptocurrency to decrypt the data. The Delhi Police, however, has refuted reports that Rs 200 crore has been demanded in cryptocurrency as a ransom.

The cyber attack comes within a month after AIIMS announced that it would go paperless from next year.