Ireland counts cost of healthcare attack

The Irish healthcare system was left relying on paper records in late May after a successful ransomware attack on their IT systems. Around 2,000 systems and 4,500 servers were disrupted, which left hospitals across the country with delays, missed appointments and some services unavailable. The Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) described the attack as “heinous” and is another world leader to identify modern cyber attacks as a major threat. Paul Reid, chief executive of the Health Service Executive, said that the attack caused 7,000 appointments per day to be cancelled, and that he expects the cost of returning to normal to be up to €100 million.