Hundreds of cyber attacks on Yorkshire public services

Hundreds of successful cyber attacks have breached the security systems of Yorkshire's hospitals, councils and universities, The Yorkshire Post reveals today.

Almost 300 successful attacks took place on three of the county’s largest universities, with three councils also reporting incidents in which hackers locked files and demanded ransoms.

Several NHS trusts across Yorkshire were seriously affected by the recent worldwide WannaCry ransomware attack, resulting in the cancellation of dozens of operations and appointments.

Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Fyfe, from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, said the nature of the NHS makes hospitals particularly vulnerable when attacks like WannaCry occur.

“With the NHS, the risk with ransomware attacks is that the data is frozen so you can’t access or make use of it,” he said.

“In the case of hospitals, this means they can’t access medical information so some had to shut down scanning equipment and cancel operations. Indirectly, this could cost lives.”

More than 1,800 computers at York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which runs hospitals in York and Scarborough, were infected with the impact resulting in 31 elective surgical procedures and 59 outpatient appointments being cancelled.