AIIMS website restoration continues, lab services are back online

AIIMS, widely regarded as India’s foremost government hospital, was hit by a ransomware attack on November 23, when staff was first unable to access the mainstay hospital management tool, eHospital

Nearly three weeks after a cyberattack crippled services at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, the hospital has announced that it has managed to restore its SMART lab services.

An elderly patient lies on a sidewalk outside the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi. The leading medical institute in India's capital limped back to normality after a cyberattack crippled its operations for nearly two weeks. (AP)

AIIMS, widely regarded as India’s foremost government hospital, was hit by a ransomware attack on November 23, when staff was first unable to access the mainstay hospital management tool, eHospital. Subsequently, the hospital shifted its processes offline, and gradually started restoring its online services in a phased manner from starting December 6.

In a circular issued late on Monday, the hospital administration said samples deposited before November 22 -- a day before the cyberattack -- and after December 12 will be available on the eHospital portal. However, patients and/or their families will have to collect manual reports for tests conducted between November 23 and December 10.

“Manual reports from SMART lab will be available for tests dated November 23-December 2, and manual reports will be available from the respective OPDs (outpatient departments) between December 3 and December 10,” the circular said.

The first department to revive online operations on December 6 was the new OPD at the Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur Block. After that, online OPD appointments were restored and now the lab services have also been revived.

On November 23, the systems at AIIMS and its centres were corrupted by a ransomware attack, which wiped outpatient and research data from its primary and backup servers.

The Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) cell has filed an FIR invoking sections of cyber terrorism (IT Act, section 66F) against unknown persons, while teams from NIC and Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) are attempting to restore the network.

On November 29, the hospital administration said in a statement that the eHospital data was restored on their servers but the complete sanitation of network was being done before services can be restored. The process was taking some time due to the volume of data and a large number of servers/computers for the hospital services, the AIIMS administration said.