The data is suspected to have been breached from Synnovis.
The Qilin threat actor has published around 400GB of patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers and descriptions of blood tests.
The name of the attackers was disclosed when it was revealed it had been seeking a $50 million payment to stop the attack on Synnovis, a provider to London hospitals who have had to cancel more than 1500 procedures.
According to BBC News, Qilin previously told the BBC they would publish the data unless they got paid. NHS England told the BBC it was aware of the publication of the data, but could not be completely sure the shared data was real.
Conor Agnew, lead cyber security assessor at Closed Door Security called the ongoing incident “the worst outcome of any cyber incident.”
Agnew said: “We don’t know how Qilin breached Synnovis’s network, but the attackers are not backing down. They have set their demand, and they want to be paid. This recent leak is to apply more pressure on Synnovis and motivate the company into paying, while demonstrating the highly sensitive data the Qilin now has in its possession.”
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
