The All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India has recovered the corrupted databases on its e-hospital servers a week after getting hit by a suspected ransomware attack.

In its latest update, the forerunning AIIMS institute, which manages over 2,500 beds, said it has restored the data on its e-hospital servers, including LIS and other dependent databases. 

It was previously reported that the records of about 40 million patients might have been exposed in the AIIMS Delhi hack, which is believed to be carried out by foreign actors. Those data may include the PPIs of patients and healthcare workers, as well as records on blood donors, ambulances, vaccination, caregivers and employee login credentials. 

The hospital also said in its update that its server network is now being sanitised before getting services back online; all hospital services, including outpatient, in-patient, and laboratories, are currently in manual mode. 

However, this process will "take some time" due to the volume of data and the number of affected servers and computers being restored. The hospital has also taken measures to prevent future attacks, including blocking the hospital's internet services. 

THE LARGER TREND

On 23 November, AIIMS Delhi reported that the servers for its e-hospital system went down, affecting digital services, including smart lab, billing, report generation, and appointment system. Developed by the National Informatics Centre, the e-hospital system is an HMIS that enables the digitisation of internal workflows and processes and serves as a single digital platform connecting patients, hospitals, and doctors. 

This cyber incident comes as AIIMS Delhi is embarking on a digital transformation journey. By next year, it will fully implement the e-hospital system. It is also putting up a smart card facility to go all-digital for payments by April. 

Multiple government agencies are already probing the latest cyber incident, including the Delhi Police, India Computer Emergency Response Team, Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation, Ministry of Home Affairs and National Investigation Agency.