Hospitals were paralyzed by a worm

A long-known worm caused serious disruptions and two days of system shutdown at three London hospitals.

The Mytob worm has been trying to cause damage to computers since 2005. Since its first release, there have been plenty of variants that have been properly combated by properly updated antivirus scanners. Nevertheless, the conquest of Mytob has been decisive in recent years, with some versions causing many headaches. The dangers inherent in the worm are well illustrated by the fact that its recent activities have led to the paralysis of the entire IT systems of three London hospitals.

A spokesman for one hospital said the virus infection was spotted on Monday. During the night, IT scientists tried to master the problems caused by the worm, but on Tuesday morning, when users tried to enter the system, it crashed. Then, according to an immediate decision, the entire hospital system was shut down. Meanwhile, patient care was ongoing, thanks to safety solutions as well as manual procedures, although doctors and nurses had to return to paper and pencil. The operation of laboratories and various medical instruments was not affected by the incident. IT professionals managed to completely remove the malware and restore the systems by Wednesday.

In hospitals, a variant of Mytob that causes a backdoor on infected computers has caused the problem. So far, there are no indications that confidential data has been leaked from health systems as a result of a computer malware attack. The spread of the worm was stopped in the internal networks of hospitals, so the systems of other organizations were not affected by the incident. No news has yet been received on how the worm may have entered the hospital system and why it could have caused such a disruption there.