Description

On June 6, 2023, the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) encountered another cyberattack, following a previous incident in November 2022. The recent attack was thwarted within a day through an advanced firewall security system used by AIIMS. The AIIMS cybersecurity team detected the malware attack at 14:50 hrs IST on June 6, 2023, promptly taking action to halt and neutralize the threat. Subsequently, AIIMS restored fully secure and operational e-hospital services. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has assumed control of AIIMS's cyber division, with various authorities, including the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIPC) and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), investigating the recent malware incident. During the cyberattack, doctors experienced a temporary interruption in accessing patient reports for over four hours on June 6, 2023. This disruption was a result of degraded servers triggering a firewall rule designed to detect viruses, leading to server downtime as a preventive measure. AIIMS has assured that additional security measures will be implemented over the next six months. The prior cyberattacks on AIIMS in November 2022, which persisted for 15 days, caused disruptions to the institution's internet services and affected a minimum of five servers.