UK’s largest healthcare trust Barts Health NHS hit by cyberattack

UK’s largest medical trust, Barts Health NHS Trust, which serves more than 2.5 million patients at five London hospitals, has confirmed the attack.

According to the attackers from the ALPHV / BlackCat group, they managed to steal 70 TB of sensitive data. Among the stolen information are personal documents of employees and confidential internal letters. The hackers said the attack was the largest public health data breach in UK history.

Press service Barts Health NHS Trust confirmed the information about the cyber attack and said that an active investigation of the incident was underway.

BlackCat group for the first time announced a cyber attack on Barts Health on June 30 and wrote that the NHS Trust had 3 days to contact the gang and prevent the publication of the data, “most of which is confidential documents of citizens.” It is noted that the stolen data has not yet been published in full.

It is worth noting that this is the second major security incident on the NHS in the past few weeks. Previously ALPHV/BlackCat stole 7TB of internal documents from Barts Health . The group released a selection of files it allegedly stole from Barts Health, including copies of employees’ driver’s licenses and passports, as well as internal emails and correspondence stamped “confidential.”

In recent months, the UK public sector has become the target of numerous cyberattacks. The loudest was the case of British outsourcing company Capita providing important services to the government of the country. As a result of this attack, claimed by Black Basta more than 90 organizations have reported privacy violations.

The UK’s National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC) is investigating both incidents. NHS England declined to comment on the matter.