Shefali Malhotra , global journalism fellow and health policy researcher Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada New Delhi shefali.m.delhi{at}gmail.comA massive cyberattack at India’s largest public hospital is raising questions about not only the targeted institution’s security but the digitisation of the country’s healthcare system. ShefaliMalhotra reportsIn November 2022, one of India’s leading hospitals, the 3000 bed All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, had its computer servers knocked out by a ransomware attack. Ransomware is a type of malicious software designed to prevent an organisation from accessing its computer systems until it pays a large amount of money to the hackers. The AIIMS attack crippled a wide range of services, including patient registration, online appointments, diagnostic report generation, and billing, as well as administrative systems such as salary disbursal and drug procurement. “AIIMS is one of our premier hospitals,” says Mahesh Verma, professor emeritus and former director of the Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences, another public hospital in Delhi, “If cyberattacks can happen there, they can happen anywhere in the country.

Source: Indian Express February 10, 2023 15:30 UTC