Earlier this week, Clínic de Barcelona suffered a cybercriminal incident that severely impacted its healthcare services. Reports stated that the RansomHouse ransomware group was the culprit of the attack, which damaged the victim’s virtual devices.
This healthcare institution in Barcelona, Spain, serves more than 500,000 individuals in dire need of healthcare services and medical attention.
The Government of Catalonia revealed the threat group that has seemingly breached Clínic de Barcelona systems and disrupted its operations.
Researchers first spotted the RansomHouse ransomware group in May last year as a data extortion marketplace. This group has yet to use ransomware in their campaigns, but some researchers soon discovered that it relates to another malicious gang, WhiteRabbit.
Moreover, the group is involved in numerous ransomware campaigns, including on eight municipalities in Italy, ADATA, and ShopRite.
The ransomware attacks against Clínic de Barcelona have also impacted three medical institutions.
According to investigations, researchers discovered that the cyberattack against Clínic de Barcelona has also impacted its affiliates CAP Casanova, CAP Les Corts, and CAP Borrell.
Furthermore, the government has already deployed a research team to determine the impact and identify the initial access used by the threat actors.
The initial report revealed that the hospital’s SAP system suffered no damage. Unfortunately, all apps and communications broke down after the attack. Hence, the campaign immediately disrupted the flow of the hospital as physicians became unreachable since they were offline.
Furthermore, the hospital manually admitted approximately 800 new urgent cases. These new cases have suffered a slow process as the Barcelona-based healthcare institution adopted a pen-and-paper mode of transaction.
The urgent medical attention admitted to the hospital on Sunday had to be dealt with manually. Hence, more slowly, the management diverted some patients to other hospitals in Barcelona.
To ease the situation, Clínic de Barcelona added health assistants and administrative staff to mitigate the effects of the attack and make communications between different departments faster.
The most impacted sector of the attack is that the hospital has suspended 150 non-urgent operations scheduled in the upcoming weeks indefinitely.
