The National Cyber Security Directorate is conducting an investigation after 20 hospitals were affected by a cyber attack.

The National Cyber Security Directorate is conducting an investigation after 20 hospitals using the Hippocrates IT platform were affected by a cyber attack in the last two days.

A 21st hospital, a paediatric hospital in Pitesti, has been affected since Saturday.

The other 79 facilities in the health system have been disconnected from the internet and are undergoing further investigation to determine whether or not they were the target of an attack.

Most of the affected hospitals have backups of their data, which could make it easier to restore services when the situation returns to normal.

In Bucharest, among the medical establishments targeted by the attack is the Floreasca Emergency Hospital, whose management has ordered the interruption of its internet connection.

Spokesman Dr Bogdan Oprita said that, despite this measure, work was proceeding normally.

Bogdan Oprita: The management of the hospital was informed that there are cyber attacks on the Hippocrates IT platform and immediately took the measure of cutting the internet connections of this platform with the outside so that such an attack does not happen on our hospital. We must point out that this measure did not lead to any disruption in the functioning of this platform within the hospital, i.e., the registration of patients, their admission, requests for analysis, paraclinical investigations, and all the work was carried out normally.

The Hippocrates system is the one that interconnects medical activities in hospitals with the Health Insurance House.

If this system is no longer working, medical services cannot be reported to the National Health Insurance House.

It should be recalled that recently another cyber attack affected the website of the Chamber of Deputies, from which hundreds of documents were stolen, including some not intended for the public.

Translated by: Radu Matei