What we know about the massive cyberattack against Versailles hospital


A new hospital is the target of hackers. The André-Mignot establishment at the Versailles hospital center in Le Chesnay-Rocquencourt (Yvelines) has been suffering from a computer attack since Saturday December 3, 2022. A virus has spread through the network, forcing caregivers to return to paper and pencil .

Very real consequences

Saturday evening at 9 p.m., several computers in the establishment crashed. A message characteristic of ransomware attacks then appeared, reports France info : “All your important files have been stolen and encrypted. Follow our instructions.” The attack would have been claimed by a group of hackers, says the management of the hospital without giving more information.

Quickly, the competent services disconnected all the computer and telephone equipment. As a direct consequence, hospital staff must manually monitor all patients. To avoid any overflow, at least six patients were transferred to other hospitals. Caregivers have been called back to support patient monitoring. The DEspagne retirement home would also be affected.

“Taking hostage the health of the French is inadmissible”

For now, no ransom has been demanded by the group behind the cyberattack. Specialized teams arrived from Grenoble (Isère) on the night of Saturday to Sunday to carry out the first analyses. The National Information Systems Security Agency (Anssi) is also in contact with the hospital and a complaint was filed late Sunday afternoon. The investigation was entrusted to the Gendarmerie’s Center for the Fight against Digital Crime (C3N), in conjunction with the Sub-Directorate for the Fight against Cybercrime (SDLC) of the Judicial Police, according to the Minister for Digital Transition and of Telecommunications, Jean-Noël Barrot, quoted by BFM-TV.

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“Taking hostage the health of the French is inadmissible […] All our means are deployed alongside the professionals mobilized to ensure the care of patients”assured for his part François Braun, Minister of Health, visiting the Versailles hospital on Sunday evening.

France bad student of cyber

The hacking of the Versailles hospital center is in line with a slew of cyberattacks in recent months. Administrations, clinics, hospitals…: hackers stop at nothing. Once spared, the medical sector is now under fire from hackers, the weak security of its computer systems making it easy prey. In March, the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) had been the target of a major hack. More recently, in September, the Corbeil-Essonnes hospital was the target of a ransomware attack, the establishment returning to cruising speed two months later.

“We are so behind on the hospital’s IT systems, we have flaws everywhere”, tries to explain the emergency doctor Patrick Pelloux to our colleagues from BFM. A delay which is partly explained by the lack of personnel in the French cybersecurity sector. The challenge for the competent authorities is now to make the sector as attractive as possible in order to attract new profiles.



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