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Cyber-attacks are on the rise!
Public sector and Government organisations are routinely and relentlessly targeted due to the sensitive nature of the data they hold ranging variously from personal information, financial records and confidential state documents, according to the National Cyber Security Centre between September 2020 and August 2021, around 40% of all attacks were aimed at the public sector.
High profile cases validate these concerns:
- The 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack targeted the NHS affected over 200,000 computers and resulted in cancelled appointments, delayed surgeries and is estimated to have cost the NHS an estimated £92 million in lost productivity and IT costs.
- In 2020, the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) was hit by a cyberattack that compromised its email system where the attack was believed to be the work of a nation-state group.
- The 2021 multi-million ransomware attack on the HSE in the Republic of Ireland also resulted in a severe impact to patient care as well as causing significant damage to IT systems. More locally, the Dept of Health, Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) and a number of local councils have been the victims of cyberattacks.
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2024 was a staggering year for serious cyber attacks on mutiple areas with some examples below
NHS Dumfries and Galloway Data Breach (March 2024)A ransomware attack that led to the theft of three terabytes of data, including confidential patient records. The health board refused to pay the ransom, attackers published the stolen information on the dark web.Synnovis Ransomware Attack (June 2024)Synnovis, a pathology services provider for King’s College Hospital and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, was targeted by the Russian cybercriminal group Qilin.10,152 outpatient appointments and 1,710 elective procedures were postponed.At least five cases of moderate patient harm were reported.Up to 300 million records, including patient data, were stolen.Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust Data Breach (Nov 2024)Experienced a significant data breach. Information, allegedly obtained illegally from systems shared with Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, was published online and circulated on social media.Wirral University Teaching Hospitals Cyberattack (Nov 2024)Declared a "major incident" following a targeted cyberattack. The trust isolated affected systems as a precaution, reverting to manual processes to continue services. Although the attack disrupted digital systems, the hospital emphasised its efforts to minimise the impact on patient care.
It is clear from their Cyber Security Strategy that the government is focused on building a cyber-resilient public sector built around 2 main pillars:
- Building organisational cyber resilience (manage and protect)
- Defending as one (Detect and minimise the threat)
One of the objectives of the Irish Government is to “To identify and protect critical national infrastructure by increasing its resilience to cyber-attack and by ensuring that operators of essential services have appropriate incident response plans in place to reduce and manage any disruption to services.”
The public sector has benefited from rapid digitisation and the integration of new technologies, but it faces very obvious challenges of prevailing legacy and data issues, complex infrastructures, disparate thinking as well as those same threats to the public sector that include remote working and human error.
LoughTec is currently working with a number of Public Sector and government bodies and organisations across the island of Ireland, in the capacity of cyber consultants and through specific cyber security services – the same cyber security solutions that we offer to businesses and organisations within the private sector.
From our work it is clear that all organisations – across ALL sectors – need to accept that they are at serious risk of cybercrime, that the consequences may well be disastrous with possible financial implications as well as interruption to the delivery of core services.
Public sector departments are as at risk as any private sector organisation and the same pre-emptive thinking actions are required:
- Assume that you have already been breached
- Undertake an immediate review of your networks
- Ensure all systems are up to date
- Ensure all data is backed up effectively on a daily basis
- Offer training to all staff across all organisations
LoughTec currently provides cyber support to a number of businesses and organisations in a variety of industries throughout Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. We support enterprise scale organisations with £500m turnover and small companies with a more regional focus, all through the implementation of our LoughTec Security Operations Centre (SOC)
LoughTec have a wide range of high-level bespoke solutions and experience delivering IT and especially cyber security within the public sector where cyber security is paramount. Avoiding cyber-attacks and threats along with the security of critical data, cyber security is of the utmost importance requires high level enterprise security products which we have demonstrable experience in.
Reach out to LoughTec below to learn how we can help deliver IT support and Cyber Security to protect your business, staff, customers, data, financials and your reputation.
