A new French hospital targeted by a computer attack. On Wednesday evening, the Rennes university hospital center announced that it was “victim of a cyberattack”, without further details. The health establishment immediately indicated that the computer incident had “no impact on the care of our patients”.
Limit the effects
Typically, the hospital disconnected its IT to prevent the attacker from continuing his malicious action. As the Brittany regional health agency specifies in a press release, internet connections were thus interrupted to “limit the effects” of the computer attack, probably spotted around 6 p.m., before a message was sent around 9 p.m. to 9000 structural agents.
In the meantime, the attackers have managed to exfiltrate data, for a volume for the moment unknown, said the ARS. It is currently unknown whether the intrusion resulted in a ransom demand or whether data encryption was initiated. “Degraded procedures are implemented, allowing the maintenance of relations with all the partners of the CHU”, adds the regional health agency, the hospital center remaining reachable by telephone. A crisis unit was also opened and a complaint filed.
wave of attacks
Last March, still in Brittany, the University Hospital of Brest-Carhaix was also the victim of an intrusion into its information system. As one of the executives told the regional daily Le Télégramme, the health establishment had been alerted by Anssi following worrying technical elements. Which had led him two hours later to close his internet access, a way of pulling the rug out from under the attacker’s feet.
The investigation will later show that a user account had been compromised and used to deploy malicious computer programs on the network.
Several French hospitals have been victims of a computer attack during the past year. The Corbeil-Essonnes hospital’s IT system had thus been put down in August 2022, while several health establishments, such as Brest or Bourg-en-Bresse, had succeeded in limiting the damage by detecting the virus early. intrusion. In 2022, Anssi had counted 11 ransomware attacks on public health establishments.