AIIMS cyber attack traced to Chinese hackers

The attack on the computer server of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi was carried out by Chinese hackers, a senior government source said on Wednesday.

“Of 100 servers (40 physical and 60 virtual), five physical servers were successfully infiltrated by the hackers. The damage would have been far worse but is now contained. Data in the five servers have been successfully retrieved now,” said the source from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

AIIMS Delhi first reported a failure in its servers on November 23. Two of the analysts deployed to look after the security of the servers have been suspended for the breach.

AIIMS authorities in a statement issued stated that the e-Hospital data has been restored.

“The network is being sanitized before the services can be restored. The process is taking some time due to the volume of data and the large number of servers/computers for the hospital services. Measures are being taken for cyber security,” the statement explained.

“All hospital services, including outpatient, in-patient, laboratories, etc continue to run on manual mode,” the statement had said.

Earlier this month, a special cell of Delhi Police launched an investigation into the attack on the computer system at AIIMS Delhi.

According to official sources, a team of the Central Forensic Lab (CFSL) has been pressed into service to check the infected server of the AIIMS Delhi to identify the source of the malware attack.