Cyberattack: Online services partially resume at AIIMS

Senior AIIMS officials said some online services were revived in the new outpatient department (OPD) of the Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur Block, and around 3,000 patients were registered on Tuesday -- the first time since the cyberattack came to light on November 23.

Two weeks after the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was hit by a cyberattack, forcing operations to be managed on paper at India’s premier medical facility, online services were partially restored at the hospital on Tuesday, people familiar with the matter confirmed.

Some online services were revived in the new outpatient department (OPD) of the Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur Block, and around 3,000 patients were registered on Tuesday. (HT Photo)

Senior AIIMS officials said some online services were revived in the new outpatient department (OPD) of the Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur Block, and around 3,000 patients were registered on Tuesday -- the first time since the cyberattack came to light on November 23.

“We have managed to revive online services at the new OPD block. Services will be revived in a phased manner,” said an AIIMS official, requesting anonymity, adding that after the new OPD, registrations will resume in the coming days for the emergency department, wards and lab services.

AIIMS did not provide an official statement on the matter.

The cyberattack – bring probed as an incident of cyber terrorism -- has been attributed to ransomware – the purported group behind it has sought 30 bitcoins as ransom – and there are fears that highly personal data of millions of patients could be at risk of leak.

While the restoration of online services came as a major relief for patients who were facing difficulties due to the hospital functioning on manual mode, there was still no clarity on whether patient and research data at the institution, which had been corrupted by the ransomware attack, could be revived.

HT had reported that another premier medical institute in Delhi, Safdarjung Hospital, also experienced a cyberattack on November 14, nearly a week before the ransomware attack at AIIMS. However, the damage at Safdarjung was not felt as much because the hospital is yet to completely digitise its services.