Hospitals across England and Scotland are being forced to postpone appointments and divert patients elsewhere because systems have been taken offline by a ransomware attack in an event NHS England has declared as a ‘major incident’.

In a statement, NHS Digital, which runs IT systems for the health service, has confirmed that systems across the country have been brought down by a ransomware attack – specially by the Wanna Decryptor ransomware. As of 15:30 on Friday afternoon, 16 NHS organisations reported they are affected – that number has risen to 25 as of 17:30, with NHS organisations in parts of Scotland also stating they’ve come under cyberattack.

NHS Digital said: “A number of NHS organisations have reported to NHS Digital that they have been affected by a ransomware attack. The investigation is at an early stage but we believe the malware variant is Wanna Decryptor.”

It went on: “This attack was not specifically targeted at the NHS and is affecting organisations from across a range of sectors. At this stage we do not have any evidence that patient data has been accessed.”

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/hospitals-across-england-hit-by-cyber-attack-systems-knocked-offline/