Chinese hackers suspected behind AIIMS Delhi cyber attack

New Delhi: The main servers of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, may have been hacked by Chinese hackers. Four more servers were on the hackers' target, a top source said on  Friday.

The source said that a total of five main servers of AIIMS were targeted by the suspected Chinese hackers. The data hacked from the AIIMS server has reportedly reached the main domain of Dark Web from where it may be sold.

Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar, while terming the AIIMS server attack as a big conspiracy, said that there could be a 'state actor' or big organized gangs behind it.

In an interview with IANS, Chandrasekhar claimed that the server attack was definitely a part of a larger conspiracy.

Also Read:Amid cyber attack, AIIMS working on security policy with investigating agencies

He said that the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Delhi Police are probing the matter.

He added that the government makes various arrangements to protect government institutions from cyber attacks, but AIIMS being an autonomous institution hires private agencies for the purpose.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that AIIMS is currently working on formulating a cyber security policy with guidance from investigating agencies, as its server remains down following the cyber attack on November 7.

The government is considering setting a standard to prevent such incidents which would be sent to institutions like AIIMS as an advisory, urging its implementation, he said.

Describing it as an issue of ransomware, the minister said that patients' data had not been leaked so far, but it has been made inaccessible from the hospital.

He called it an issue of cyber security.

Chandrasekhar added that the government would bring a Digital Personal Data Protection Bill regarding data breach, after the implementation of which the victims in such cases would be able to complain about their data privacy breach by emailing the Data Protection Board.

On Tuesday, AIIMS had said that the eHospital data has been restored on its server and the network is being sanitised before services can be restored.

"Network being sanitised before services can be restored. The process is taking some time due to the volume of data and large number of servers/computers for the hospital services. Measures are being taken for cyber security," AIIMS had said in a statement.

However, all hospital services, including out-patient, in-patient, laboratories etc., continue to run on manual mode presently.

Also Read:Delhi AIIMS Cyberattack: Two system analysts suspended over alleged dereliction of duty