Cambridge hospital cleans up after mystery malware infection
Patients unaffected after PCs get the pox
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An unnamed computer virus infection forced a UK hospital to temporarily shut down part of its network earlier this week.
An unspecified number of computers at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge were hit by the malware. A spokesman explained that the hospital continued to operate normally while IT staff grappled with the infection. He stressed that patients were not affected by the incident, which was resolved in a matter of hours.
Malware infections at hospitals in the UK are by no means unprecedented. Back in November, for example, computers at the three hospitals that are part of Barts and the London NHS Trust were taken offline following infection by the MyTob worm.
Clinical staff had to go back to pen and paper systems in some cases, and ambulances were temporarily diverted for a short time during the first day of the incident. It took around three days to fully restore email at the three London hospitals.
The Addenbrooke's spokesman was familiar with that incident but said that the effects of the malware infection at the Cambridge hospital were nothing like as severe. He promised to ask technicians what strain of malware caused the infection, as that information wasn't immediately to hand. ®
COMMENTS
Related issue?
Don't know if it's related or not but I also work in another hospital on IT support and we have recently had a call about visitors to a healthcare website Healthcare Innovation Expo who were being infected with malware, possibly due to the site being hijacked. Luckily the security systems here blocked it before it spread to other machines.
Doctor's Offices
Whenever I'm in a doctor's office or some other medical facility, I'm now in the habit of looking at their information technology. This usually results in my dwelling more on their lack of security than my case of the flu, re injured knee, or whatever brought me there.
My last visit left me alone in a room for about half an hour with a WinXP machine hanging from a wall. Later, when someone arrived to use it, I was quite distracted while talking with her as I kept thinking how easily one could compromise the records of everyone associated with their practice.
Mysterious malware?
It's called Windows and these morons are still using it ffs!
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