AIIMS servers still down as agencies probe cyber attacks, services run manually

The investigation into the cyber attack on the servers of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) continued on Friday, even as the servers of the hospital remained down for the third consecutive day. The hospital is managing the patient care services manually, an official said on Friday. The internet of AIIMS has been blocked as per the instructions of the investigative agencies.

"Investigation into the incident and efforts to bring back digital patient care services are progressing. Actions to prevent such attacks are being planned. We hope to be able to restore the affected activities soon," the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said in a statement.

The officials from the hospital informed the news agency PTI that the Delhi Police, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), representatives of the Ministry of Home Affairs, and even the National Investigation Agency have joined the probe.

"Internet services are blocked as per the recommendations of the investigating agencies," the official source said.

The services like outpatient and inpatient digital hospital services, including smart lab, billing, report generation, and the appointment system are affected as servers of the hospitals remained down.

On Wednesday, at around 7 in the morning, the servers of India's premier institute for medical science went down after a cyber attack. Delhi Police has registered an FIR against unidentified persons in the matter.

After the hospital authorities approached Delhi Police about the cyber attack, the police transferred the case to its Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit. A team from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) working at the hospital suspects the role of ransomware in the cyber attack.

The police have scanned four physical servers arranged for restoring e-Hospital services. The officials claimed that they are prepared for the database and applications. One more source of the news agency PTI claimed that 15 out of around 50 servers and 400 out of around 5,000 endpoint computers have been scanned using antivirus, and the activity is ongoing.

With inputs from PTI