Defenceless In The Face Of Cyber Attacks

Ransomware Attack On AIIMS Servers One Of The Many Such Strikes By Hackers Worldwide

- Rajshekhar Jha

New Delhi: Even as the country’s top cybercrime units grappled with the ransomware attack on AIIMS servers and systems, sources in the security establishment said chances of fully recovering from the damage caused by the malware were bleak and “starting afresh” seemed to be the way out.

The best of minds from the CERT-IN (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team), CDAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) and NIC (National Informatics Centre), apart from two intelligence agencies, were trying to restore the system, but a breakthrough was yet to be achieved for the fifth day as AIIMS services continued to be on manual mode.

According to the sequence of events established till now, the primary and first backup servers of AIIMS were found corrupted around 7am on Wednesday. The first disruption was reported from the emergency lab when operators were unable to view reports in the systems. The billing section and OPD counters soon reported the same error.