Illustration: JMiks | Shutterstock
A ransomware attack on Synnovis, a pathology service provider for the King’s College Hospital NHS Trust, has led to the death of a patient. The trust, one of many affected by the ransomware attack, confirmed the news on June 25, and Qilin had demanded a ransom of $50 million at the time.
Speaking to The Register, an NHS spokesperson claimed that “one patient sadly died unexpectedly during the cyberattack.” As is standard practice for such situations, the NHS conducted a detailed review of their care, which identified “a number of contributing factors that led to the patient’s death,” including a long wait for a blood test as the lab was dealing with the cyberattack at the time.
The Register, quoting figures from the South East London Integrated Care Board, reported that at least 170 patients were affected by the ransomware attack. Most were categorised as “low harm,” and this death is the only reported fatality so far. However, this isn’t the first time a ransomware attack on a healthcare facility has led to a patient’s death.
The first reported case of a ransomware death was in 2020 when a ransomware attack on a German hospital resulted in a botched homicide investigation. A 78-year-old woman had to travel to a more distant hospital due to the Düsseldorf University Clinic being busy with the cyberattack. A 2023 paper from the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health also puts medicare patient deaths between 42 and 67 from 2016 to 2021 as a result of ransomware attacks.
The ransomware attack on the NHS was carried out by the Qilin ransomware group, which operates as a ransomware-as-a-service operation. The group has also breached a cancer clinic in Japan and a women’s healthcare facility in the US, all while Qilin has been hard at work adding new features to make attacks even more deadly, including a feature that lets affiliates call a lawyer to help increase pressure during negotiations.
In the News: Hackers are stealing VPN logins with fake versions of SonicWall’s VPN
