The Minister of Health, François Braun, explained that the most fragile patients had been taken care of in other care centers.
The computer attack against the Corbeil-Essonnes hospital, in the Paris suburbs, does not endanger the health of patients, assured Tuesday in Montpellier the Minister of Health François Braun, while qualifying this cyberattack as “dramatic and unacceptable“. “Patient care is not endangered“, insisted the minister, specifying that the patients falling under “of severe technical platforms are redirected by the Samu to other hospitals“. Same reassuring tone at the level of the management of the establishment where the situation is the same as the day before: the work is done “by hand, without the help of computers“. “We work in degraded mode, not for the patient, but for us“, she says.
Consultations and follow-ups in the day hospital remain scheduled, the activities of the operating room are managed “case by caseand patients who come to the emergency room are redirected to the on-call medical center whose consultation ranges have been extended or to other hospitals in the region, the establishment detailed on Tuesday. “It is a cyberattack, as unfortunately there are in all establishments, (…) as there are regularly, unfortunately. We won’t give in“, assured François Braun, passing through the Hérault in a vaccination center against monkey pox. But “the hospital reacted extremely well, with the support of the ARS, the support of the ministry and the support of the interior forces to counter this attack“, continued the Minister of Health and Prevention.
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Regular attacks for two years
The South Francilien Hospital Center (CHSF) in Corbeil-Essonnes, south-east of Paris, has been the victim of a computer attack since the night of Saturday to Sunday around 01:00. A ransom demand of 10 million dollars, formulated in English, was demanded by the hacker(s). Opened in 2012 and with a capacity of a thousand beds, the CHSF provides health coverage for a population of nearly 600,000 inhabitants of the outer suburbs.
A wave of cyberattacks has been targeting the French and European hospital sector for about two years. In 2021, the National Authority for the Security and Defense of Information Systems (Anssi) noted on average one incident of this type per week in a health establishment in France. “Hackers have particularly wide targets, they go fishing. It is essentially the lure of profit that motivates them, although some may also have ideological motivations, revenge“, told AFP General Christophe Husson, second in command of the Gendarmerie Command in cyberspace (ComCyberGend), recalling that the “global cost of cybercrime is estimated at 6 billion dollars per year“.
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The aim of the cybergendarmes’ investigation is to collect “digital evidence” for “identify the perpetrators, locate them and arrest them“. These surveys arealways very long, can last several months or even several yearsand require significant international cooperation. “No (hospital) establishment has paid and will pay (ransom)“Said the director of the CHSF, because of its status as a public establishment, the attack being therefore a pure loss for cybercriminals. To fight against the expanding phenomenon, the State devoted after the Covid-19 epidemic an envelope of 25 million euros to the cybersecurity of health establishments.
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