© CopyrightCannes Hospital Centre - Simone Veil cancels medical procedures after shutting down systems in response to a cyberattack.
Also known as the Broussailles Hospital, the healthcare organization decided to completely cut off computer access to contain the attack, which forced employees to turn to pen and paper to continue providing services to patients.
"These procedures are more time-consuming and the examination delivery times are extended," an automatic translation of the hospital's incident notice reads.
CHC-SV says it is making all the efforts to ensure that it can provide the full range of care across its fields of activity, adding that it has been working with regional healthcare entities to redirect patients based on their needs.
While emergency activity at CHC-SV continues, non-urgent operating procedures were canceled last week, but those that were not dependent on computer systems, as well as those for known chronic patients, were performed.
The hospital says it has notified the relevant authorities and that authorities and cybersecurity experts are analyzing the incident. To date, no ransom demand has been made and no evidence of data theft has been discovered, CHC-SV says.
According to the hospital, recovery operations will focus on systems directly linked to patient care. However, CHC-SV estimates that it would take a long time to restore operations to normal.
"The CHC-SV had never been a victim of such cyberattacks," the hospital points out.
CHC-SV is an 840-bed hospital in Cannes, France, employing more than 2,000 people and offering emergency, surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, and other healthcare services.
Comment: With all the cyberattacks on emergency and governmental services, one could be forgiven for thinking that these are trial runs for something much more significant - below is just a selection of attacks in the last year or so: