The Health Service Executive in Ireland temporarily shuts down its IT system after a “significant ransomware attack”.

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Ireland’s health service has temporarily shut down its IT system after what it described as a “significant ransomware attack”.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) said it had taken the precaution of closing down its systems to further protect them and assess the situation.
Ireland’s health minister, Stephen Donnelly, said the incident was having “a severe impact on [the] health and social care services”.
Emergency services continued, he said.
Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital has cancelled outpatients visits, due to a “critical emergency”, unless women are 36 weeks pregnant or later.All gynaecology clinics are cancelled.
The maternity hospital said those with any urgent concerns should attend.
The National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street in Dublin also said there would be “significant disruption” to its services on Friday “due to a major IT issue”.
It has apologised to patients and the public and said it would give further information as it becomes available.
In a tweet, Mr Donnelly said his department is working to ensure the systems and information is protected.
I have been in regular contact with @paulreiddublin this morning about this cyber attack on the @HSELive IT systems. We are working to ensure that the systems and the information is protected. COVID-19 testing and vaccinations are continuing as planned today.
— Stephen Donnelly (@DonnellyStephen) May 14, 2021
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter
He added that that Covid-19 vaccinations and testing would proceed as normal.
HSE chief executive Paul Reid told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland it is working to contain a sophisticated human-operated ransomware attack on its IT systems.
He said that the cyber attack was having an impact on all national and local systems involved in all core services.
Mr Reid described the attack as “significant and serious” and said the HSE has taken all precautionary measures to shut down a lot of its major systems to protect them.
“We are working with all of our major IT security providers and the national security cyber team are involved and being alerted, so that would be the major state supports including gardai [Irish police] the defences forces and third party support teams,” he added.
There is a significant ransomware attack on the HSE IT systems. We have taken the precaution of shutting down all our our IT systems in order to protect them from this attack and to allow us fully assess the situation with our own security partners.
— HSE Ireland (@HSELive) May 14, 2021
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter
“Obviously we do apologise for the impact that it has had, but we are at the very early stages of fully understanding the threat, the impacts and trying to contain them.”
Mr Reid said the attack is focused on accessing data stored on central servers.
He said it is a major incident, but that no ransom demand has been made at this stage.
Computer viruses that threaten to delete your files unless you pay a ransom are known as ransomware.
image captionDublin’s Rotunda Hospital has taken the precaution of closing down its IT systems to further protect them
Like other computer viruses, it usually finds its way onto a device by exploiting a security hole in vulnerable software or by tricking somebody into installing it.
Rotunda Hospital Master Professor Fergal Malone said they had discovered during the night that they were victims of the ransomware attack, which is affecting all of its electronic systems and records.
Prof Malone said he believed it could also have affected other hospitals.
“We use a common system throughout the HSE in terms of registering patients and it seems that must have been the entry point or source.
“It means we have had to shut down all our computer systems.”
Rotunda Critical EmergencyDue to a serious IT issue all outpatient visits are cancelled today – unless you are at 36 weeks pregnant or later. All gynae clinics are cancelled today.If you have any urgent concerns please attend as normal.
Further updates will follow.
— The Rotunda Hospital (@RotundaHospital) May 14, 2021
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter
Prof Malone said all patients are safe and the hospital had contingency plans in place so it can function normally using a paper-based system.
He added that this would slow down the processing of patients, which is why the hospital was looking to limit the numbers attending appointments on Friday.
He said life-saving equipment was in operation and it was computers with healthcare records that have been affected.
“We have systems in place to revert back to old fashioned based record keeping,” he said.
“Patients will come in, in labour, over the weekend and we will be well able to look after them.”
Prof Malone said a team was working to resolve the issue.
The Rotunda Hospital tweeted that patients with scheduled Paediatric Outpatients appointments should “please come in as normal”.
The HSE tweeted that the National Ambulance Service is “operating as per normal with no impact on emergency ambulance call handling and dispatch nationally”.
Professor Seamus O’Reilly, oncologist at Cork University Hospital, said all of its computers had been switched off due to the cyber attack.
He told RTÉ that the HSE had acted quickly, but that it was distressing for patients who are awaiting results and “living in that zone of uncertainty”.
“There is a lot of distress in our clinics and wards today because of this,” he added.
Prof O’Reilly said cancer care was time dependent on technology and the hospital is anxious to proceed with treatment.
He said IT systems had already been under pressure dealing with the impact of Covid-19.
Krysia Lynch, chair of the Association for the Improvement in Maternity Services in Ireland, said it was time to ask the HSE if they have patient records stored in a robust way and if they have proper cyber defences for this type of ransomware.
“If they are moving to electronic records for all maternity hospitals they need to have their assurances in place as it is very difficult to have maternity services disrupted in this way.”