AIIMS Delhi Servers Hacked By Chinese, Data Restored: Govt Source

On 23 November, AIIMS-New Delhi issued a statement saying their server withheld details of patients.

All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

The cyber attack on the servers of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi was carried out by Chinese hackers, a senior government source told news agency on Wednesday, 15 December. The official added that in the five servers have been successfully retrieved now.

Flashback: On 23 November, AIIMS-New Delhi issued a statement saying their server withheld details of their outpatient and inpatient digital hospital services including smart lab, billing, report generation, appointment system, were affected.

The big point: In such an attack, access to data or a device is blocked. What followed was a frenzy of staff scrambling for hours to get the server running as services came to a sudden stand still as a result of the breach.

More importantly, it comes at a time when Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told Parliament on 13 December that the Indian Army had resisted an attempt by China to change the status quo on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh.

What they said: "AIIMS Delhi server attack was by the Chinese, FIR details that the attack had originated from China. Of 100 servers (40 physical and 60 virtual), five physical servers were successfully infiltrated by the hackers. The damage would have been far worse but is now contained. Data in the five servers have been successfully retrieved now," the source from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) to ANI.

The AIIMS version: In a statement, AIIMS said that the e-Hospital data has been restored.

"The eHospital data has been restored on the servers. The network is being sanitized before the services can be restored. The process is taking some time due to the volume of data and the large number of servers/computers for the hospital services. Measures are being taken for cyber security," they had said.