3rd LD Writethru: Britain's NHS hit by widespread cyber attack

A major incident has been declared after NHS services across England and Scotland were hit by a large-scale cyber attack on Friday, causing failures of IT systems across the country.

The NHS has confirmed that a ransomware attack is responsible for major IT problems affecting hospitals across the country. Officials described it as the worst ever attack on the NHS.

Hospitals affected are believed to have lost the use of phone lines and computers, with some diverting all but emergency patients elsewhere.

According to BBC's reports, NHS Incident Director, Dr Anne Rainsberry, said: "We'd like to reassure patients that if they need the NHS and it's an emergency that they should visit A&E or access emergency services in the same way as they normally would and staff will ensure they get the care they need."

She added there are contingency plans to "keep the NHS open for business".

Early reports said 16 NHS health trusts, including trusts and hospitals in London, Blackburn, Nottingham, Cumbria and Hertfordshire had been affected by the attack.

The NHS was considered in 2015 to be one of the biggest organisations in the world, employing around 150,000 hospital doctors and 315,000 nurses and thousands more in community health services.

Some general practitioner (GP) surgeries had to shut down phone and IT systems while emergency rooms at some major hospitals told people not to attend casualty departments except in urgent emergencies.

Some hospitals cancelled non-urgent operations.

Officials at NHS England said they were looking into the situation.

Simon Enright, director of communications for NHS England, said: "This attack was not specifically targeted at the NHS and is affecting organisations from across a range of sectors."

The Patients Association said the attack appeared to have been "highly co-ordinated and aggressive."

"A police investigation will no doubt be required," it added. "Though today's may be the largest attack of this sort, it is not the first -- yet the lessons from earlier incidents have not been learnt."

Staff cannot access patient data, which has been scrambled by ransomware. There is no evidence patient data has been compromised, NHS Digital has said.

A spokesman of NHS Digital said: "A number of NHS organisations have reported to NHS Digital that they have been affected by a ransomware attack which is affecting a number of different organisations. The investigation is at an early stage, but we believe the malware variant is Wanna Decryptor. At this stage, we do not have any evidence that patient data has been accessed."

"NHS Digital is working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre, the Department of Health and NHS England to support affected organisations and to recommend appropriate mitigations. Our focus is on supporting organisations to manage the incident swiftly and decisively."

There were posts circulating on social media sites of screen-shots demanding ransoms of several hundred U.S. dollars to remove the malware.

Cybersecurity expert Prof Alan Woodward told BBC that 11 countries are reporting outbreaks of this WCry ransomware, with Spain and Russia the worst affected so far. Endit