Fear over more cyber attacks as workers return

ADDITIONAL steps have been taken to protect the NHS in Wales following a cyber attack which crippled services across the world on Friday.

The Welsh Government has worked to protect NHS IT systems in Wales following an unprecedented attack on health organisations in England and Scotland which saw users locked out of vital computer systems.

The move comes as the head of Europol warned the threat of the cyber attack, which affected 150 countries, “will continue to grow” as people return to work today.

A Welsh Government spokesperson said on Saturday: “In Wales, no systems have been impacted and no patient data has been compromised or lost.

“We have recently invested in upgrading IT to protect potentially vulnerable NHS Wales systems and all GP systems in Wales are managed and supported centrally, with best practice security controls.

“Additional steps are being taken to protect NHS IT over the weekend and into the start of next week.”

The Westminster Government and NHS bosses in England have faced questions over why hospitals across the country were crippled by the global cyber attack amid suggestions preventative measures could have been taken “months ago”.

The “large-scale” attack is thought to have locked staff out of their computers and forced many trusts to divert emergency patients and cancel procedures.

A pop-up message demanding a ransom in exchange for access to the PCs has been seen on staff computers across England. Dozens of health service organisations in England and Scotland were infiltrated by the malicious software, while many others shut down servers as a precautionary measure, bringing added disruption.

Doctors reported seeing computers go down “one by one” as the “ransomware” took hold on Friday, locking machines and demanding money to release the data.

Speaking to ITV’s Peston on Sunday, Europol director Rob Wainwright said the attack was indiscriminate across the private and public sectors.

“At the moment we are in the face of an escalating threat, the numbers are going up, I am worried about how the numbers will continue to grow when people go to work and turn their machines on Monday morning.

“The latest count is over 200,000 victims in at least 150 countries. Many of those will be businesses including large corporations.”

It is not yet known if or how many victims have been caught up the attack in Wales.

Investigators from the National Crime Agency are now working to find those behind the attack.

Speaking after a Cobra meeting on Saturday, Home Secretary Amber Rudd admitted “there’s always more” that can be done to protect against viruses.

She said: “If you look at who’s been impacted by this virus, it’s a huge variety across different industries and across international governments.

“This is a virus that attacked Windows platforms. The fact is the NHS has fallen victim to this.

“I don’t think it’s to do with that preparedness. There’s always more we can all do to make sure we’re secure against viruses, but I think there have already been good preparations in place by the NHS to make sure they were ready for this sort of attack.”

Labour’s shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, in a letter to Mr Hunt, said concerns were repeatedly flagged about outdated computer systems.

Speaking to Robert Peston, he demanded that the Conservatives publish the Department of Health’s risk register to see how seriously they were taking IT threats.

Among those affected by the virus was Nissan UK, but the car manufacturer said there had been no major impact.