French hospital sends patients elsewhere after $10M ransomware attack

On Sunday 21st of August 2022, the Center Hospitalier Sud Francilien (CHSF), a 1000-bed hospital located 28km from the center of Paris, suffered a cyberattack which has resulted in the medical centre referring patients to other establishments and postponing appointments for surgeries. The hospital’s administration has not provided further updates on the situation, and the IT system outage is still ongoing which is reducing the hospital’s operations. At this current time, doctors from CHSF are evaluating those in need of emergency care and if their condition requires medical imaging for treatment, they will be transferred to another medical centre.

“This attack on the computer network makes the hospital’s business software, the storage systems (in particular medical imaging), and the information system relating to patient admissions inaccessible for the time being,” – CHSF translated announcement.

According to a French daily newspaper, Le Monde, the ransomware threat actors that hit CHSF demanded the payment of a ransom of $10,000,000 in exchange for a decryption key. No ransomware group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet but there is a belief that Rangar Locker or LockBit 3 could be responsible for the incident.