A cyber-attack has hit systems used by the NHS, affecting services across all four of the UK’s nations possibly for up to four weeks.

The incident disrupted NHS 111, a helpline for medical advice, along with systems used to dispatch ambulances, make out-of-hours appointments and issue emergency prescriptions.

The cyber-attack affected Adastra, clinical patient management software provided by UK company Advanced. The company identified the incident at 7am on the 4th of August.

While the system is used by 85% of NHS 111 providers and out-of-hours services, the company said that the issue was contained to 2% of its health and care infrastructure.

“Early intervention from our incident response team contained this issue to a small number of servers representing 2% of our health and care infrastructure,” the company’s COO Simon Short said.

“We continue to work with the NHS and health and care bodies as well as our technology and security partners, focused on recovery of all systems over the weekend and during the early part of next week,” he added.

While Health Secretary Steve Barclay has said that “NHS England has contingency plans in place in areas affected, and disruption to the service is minimal,” Advanced has warned that the ramifications of the attack may not be fixed until this week.

According to NHS England, 111 services are still available. “Those unwell can continue to use 111 services or should call 999 in an emergency,” Barclay added.

However, the Welsh Ambulance Service has warned that 111 calls may take longer to answer.

In addition, NHS England warned that GPs could see an increase in the number of patients they see due to disruptions caused to NHS 111.

The Scottish Government has said that it is working with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to gauge the impact of the cyber-attack. Scottish Health Secretary Humza Yousaf noted that while there are plans in place to mitigate the impact “there will be some level of disruption”.

In the aftermath of the NHS cyber-attack, ministers have begun coordinating a “resilience response”.

Recommended

• Disrupting Scotland’s short-term rental market
• 3D digital imaging tech to map Scottish seabed
• Strathclyde Uni project joins quantum tech research cohort

Commenting on the NHS cyber-attack, Andy Norton, European Cyber Risk Officer at Armis noted: “The latest attack on the NHS 111 system – which has been confirmed to be a ransomware attack by a reliable NHS source and is leaving patients scrambling to book necessary medical appointments – is another example of why securing unmanaged devices can be a matter of life and death.

“Healthcare has always been a prime target for cybercriminals, but the expanded attack surface of IoT and connected medical devices has exponentially increased vulnerabilities in the last few years.

“The NHS is particularly vulnerable. Armis’ research of NHS Trusts has shown that ‘suspicious activity’ – including exploit attempts, drive-by attacks, port scans, and connections to the dark web – have risen by 80% since this April, though the Trusts’ abilities to protect themselves from these threats have remained the same since pre-April.

“What is clear from these figures is that NHS infrastructure is being targeted more heavily than ever before, so gaining visibility and understanding of all connected assets is vital to the health of these critical services.”

Get the latest news from DIGIT direct to your inbox

Our newsletter covers the latest technology and IT news from Scotland and beyond, as well as in-depth features and exclusive interviews with leading figures and rising stars.

To subscribe, click here.