Intelligence agencies and police in Ireland have suspected Russian hackers in the St Petersburg area of a cyber attack against Ireland’s National Health Service
“The National Cyber Security Centre and Garda Shikhan believe that the organised criminal group behind the attack is known as Wizard Spider and is based in Russia in and around St Petersburg”, – RTE notes.
According to the broadcaster, the Irish government has already been in contact with the Russian authorities about the cyber attack and the damage it caused to the Irish healthcare system.
Meanwhile, the head of the Irish Department of Health, Stephen Donnelly, said that the authorities had not paid any ransom to the hackers.
RTE added that the National Cyber Security Centre and Garda Sheehan are currently conducting an international investigation into what happened, liaising with the FBI, Interpol, Europol and the UK’s National Crime Agency.
Earlier in May, the Irish National Health Service temporarily shut down its computer systems due to a hacking attack. A spokesman for the service, Paul Reid, later said that the attack had caused severe damage to the country’s health system and that the authorities would continue to deal with the aftermath of the attack. However, he was unable to say whether the stolen patient data had made its way onto the internet.