10th Jun 11
Sony hackers plan attack on NHS computers
by Paul Russell
Health alert: NHS warned to guard against cyber attacks
Health alert: NHS warned to guard against cyber attacks
The NHS has been told to guard against computer hackers after being targeted by the group which conducted cyber attacks on Sony and Nintendo.
Primary care trusts(PCTs) and hospital trusts throughout England have been made aware of the security breach by the Department of Health’s IT branch, Connecting for Health, after one PCT was targeted.
The perpetrators were Lulzsec, the self-styled global “pirate-ninja” hackers, who refer to themselves as “the world’s leaders in high quality entertainment at your expense”. They recently gained global attention after being able to penetrate entertainment corporations’ security.
Medical records of patients were not accessed during the incident, stressed the department. It said it was a local issue and described it as a relatively low-level lapse in IT security that only affected part of an unnamed NHS organisation’s website – one of the 150 or so PCTs in England.
A spokeswoman for the department said that this was a local issue which affected a small amount of website administrators and that no patient data had been compromised. She confirmed that national NHS information systems were not affected and that the Department had issued guidance on how to secure and protect all information assets. She added that they were confident that there was no damage and no harm had been done relating to patient information.
The breach was discovered by the Health Service Journal magazine. LulzSec claimed that they obtained the necessary passwords months ago. Earlier in June, LulzSec hacked in to Sony Pictures Entertainment’s website and exposed data from 37,000 users, including passwords, names, email addresses and birthdates. In addition, it hacked into a Nintendo webserver in the US.
The group said that contacted the NHS to make them aware of the breach of IT security on Wednesday. A version of the message by Lulzsec with blanked out password details, posted on Twitter saying that they are a somewhat known band of pirate-ninjas which go by LulzSec. It explained that some time ago they were traversing the web for signs of enemy fleets and that while you (NHS) are not considered an enemy, they stumbled upon several of your admin passwords. It added that they mean no harm and just want to help you repair your tech issues.
Our Stories
- Sandwich labels misleading shoppers
- Unemployment drops unexpectedly but worse still to come
- Tesco store managers see annual bonuses cut
- Royal Mail: half London sorting office to be sold
- Panasonic announces £3.4bn loss
- Thomas Cook attacks government over holidays at home promotion
- Clinton Cards falls into administration
- Wet April sees high street spending fall
- Five tough years ahead for UK jobs market
- Deal struck to save Thomas Cook
- Discount battle leads to sales decline at Morrisons
- Wetherspoon founder: pubs plans to be hit by taxes
Popular Topics
afghanistan al qaeda amazon Apple ASDA bank of england barack obama BBC british airways china david cameron Debenhams Egypt facebook george osborne Google India ipad iphone ivory coast japan Libya London M&S Marks & Spencer Morrisons nhs North Korea Office for National Statistics pakistan protests russia Sainsbury’s South Korea terrorism Tesco Tunisia UK UK retailers UK retail news UK shopping us Waitrose Wikileaks x factorArchive
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- January 2009
