Welsh health services ready for cyber attack

HEALTH organisations in Wales are taking precautions following the huge cyber attack on the NHS in England.

The Government and NHS bosses in England are today facing growing questions over why hospitals across the country were crippled by a 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.

A pop-up message demanding a ransom in exchange for access to the PCs has been seen on staff computers across England.

But the NHS Wales Informatics Service, which looks after technology and computer systems here, says things are working as normal in Wales.

The NHS Wales’ IT department said, however, that all inbound emails from external senders and NHS England to NHS Wales will be blocked as a precaution, until it is reviewed on Monday.

NHS Wales health IT added: “Blocked emails will be dropped and deleted. Client services supported file shares have also been disabled until Monday as a precaution.

“All outbound emails, and emails sent within NHS Wales, are unaffected.”

It is feared computers in A&E wards, GPs’ surgeries and other vital services across the NHS were infected with a virus based on hacking tools developed by US cyber warfare agents.

At least 30 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.