NHS confirms stolen data published online comes from blood test provider

Stolen data published online has been confirmed to have come from NHS provider Synnovis, NHS England said.

Synnovis, which manages blood tests for NHS trusts and GP services mainly in south-east London, fell victim to a cyber attack on June 3 – believed to have been carried out by Russian group Qilin.

NHS England said the data was published online by the group on Friday. Hundreds of surgeries and appointments have been canceled in the weeks since the incident.

In a statement on Monday, NHS England said there was “no evidence” that the cybercriminals had published an entire database, but that it could take “several weeks” to find out which people were affected by the attack.

It said: “NHS England continues to work with Synnovis and the National Crime Agency to respond to the criminal ransomware attack on Synnovis systems. Synnovis has now confirmed through initial analysis that data published by a cybercrime group has been stolen from some of their systems.

“We understand that this may be of concern to people, and Synnovis is working hard to conduct the further analysis necessary to understand the full extent and nature of the data released and the impact on patients.

“At this time, Synnovis has confirmed that there is no evidence that the cybercriminals have published a copy of the database (Laboratory Information Management System) that stores patient test requests and results, although their investigations are still ongoing.”

According to the BBC, Qilin shared almost 400GB of data – including patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers and blood test descriptions – on the dark web and his Telegram channel. Spreadsheets were also published showing financial arrangements between hospitals and GP services and Synnovis, the BBC reported.

NHS England said: “These types of investigations are complex and can take time. Given the complexity of the investigation, it may take several weeks before it becomes clear which people are affected.”

It added that local healthcare systems would work together with additional resources to reduce the impact on patients and process urgent blood samples.

Between June 10 and 16, the second week after the attack, more than 320 elective operations and 1,294 outpatient appointments were postponed at King’s College and Guy’s and St Thomas hospitals in London.

The number of rescheduled elective surgeries had fallen by 494 since the first week after the attack, but the number of missed outpatient appointments had increased by 394. According to the NHS, the total as of June 20 was 1,134 planned operations and 2,194 postponed outpatient appointments. England.

Patients have been told to continue to attend their appointments unless otherwise instructed, while emergency care is available as usual.