Rs 200 crore ransom demand behind AIIMS cyberattack?

The cyberattack on the servers of All India Institute of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was carried out to demand a ransom to decrypt critical data encrypted by the hackers, according to a News18 report that cited intelligence agencies.

No further discussions have taken place over the ransom demand, reportedly to the tune of Rs 200 crore, and hospital authorities have started working off of the back-up data, the report said.

Meanwhile, the NIC e-hospital database and servers have been restored. The NIC team is scanning and cleaning infection from other e-hospital servers located at AIIMS which are required for delivery of hospital services.

Four physical servers arranged for restoring e-hospital services have been scanned and prepared for the databases and applications.

The sanitation of the AIIMS network is in progress and antivirus solutions have been organised for servers and computers and work has been completed on nearly 1,200 out of 5,000 computers. Twenty out of 50 servers have been scanned and this activity is going on 24×7, a source said.

The full sanitisation of the network is likely to continue for another five days after which e-hospital services will start in a phased manner.

Meanwhile, patient care services, including emergency, outpatient, inpatient, laboratory etc services are being continued on manual mode.