South Africa’s health system still reeling from ransomware attack
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00:00South Africa's National Health Lab Service or NHLS is still reeling from a June ransomware attack.
00:06The raid caused months of lab testing delays and saw hackers steal huge amounts of data.
00:12Eunice Masson with more.
00:15The computer system of the National Health Laboratory Service was blocked since mid-June.
00:21Doctors had no access to critical medical information of patients and it took the
00:27health ministry a few weeks to realize that they have been hacked. The Russian criminal
00:31syndicate BlackSuit claimed responsibility for a data theft and demanded a ransom.
00:38According to a cyber security expert, data piracy is worth more than one billion euros a year.
00:46We've been tracking between about 35 and 45 active gangs at any given time and we're recording
00:55around four and a half thousand what we call observable victims every year. That's 77 percent
01:03increase, almost twice as much as the year before. This organization's chart shows companies like
01:10BlackSuit regularly change their name and structure. The ransoms paid easily reaches
01:15over the millions of euros. The highest ever paid was 75 million euros. But in the case of the South
01:22African health system, it seems that nobody paid. Hackers have given up hope to receive a ransom,
01:29but now threatened to expose the confidential information of millions of patients. In the case
01:36of NHLS, you can see down there their timer has run out and there is now a link that allows you
01:46to download all of their files. Deputy Health Minister Dr Joe Pakhla announced yesterday that
01:53operations have been restored. However, it is understood that the medical histories of patients
02:00are not yet available.