Someone is going to die if this keeps up:
England's NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) has issued an urgent call to O Positive and O Negative blood donors to book appointments and donate after last week’s cyberattack on pathology provider Synnovis impacted multiple hospitals in London.
On June 4, operations at multiple large NHS hospitals in London were disrupted by the ransomware attack that the Russian cybercrime group Qilin (a.k.a. Agenda) launched on Synnovis.
The incident impacted blood transfusions, with many non-urgent procedures being canceled or redirected.
And so for the lack of adequate backups, Blighty is running out of blood.
10 comments:
Hrrrrrrrmmmmmmm.
Do we live in an age of cybernetic privateers? His Putler issued a letter of marque for stuff like this? Yes…this crap very much will get out of control and you computer geeks are going to find yourselves right in the middle of it, BP. Everything’s moving to integrated warfare; WW3 may well be won based on who can get inside their adversary’s computers first…
Not sure how giving more blood will get around a cyberattack affecting the delivery of blood. That's kinda like adding more cars to a road that's blocked by a stalled train...
Not surprised.
Welcome to the crazy years of 5th generation asymetrical warfare.
Great movie, even with quick draw Baldwin.
Yep, 5th gen cyber warfare is EXACTLY what it is!
"Be careful, Ryan. Most things in here don't respond well to bullets."
FTR, Britistan isn't "running out of blood".
They just lack the capability to move what they have most efficiently and direct it where it's needed right now, and most countries (including the U.S.) rarely have more than a few hours' supply on hand, 24/7/365.
This is only compounded when you can't move it where it's needed before it expires because someone's farked up the inventory and routing software.
There may be another factor. We were over there last month and a good portion of the morning wake up news programs were devoted to a major story. TAINTED BLOOD!! Once you got past all the emotional fluff the basics of it were that way back in the early 1980s (!) blood products were bought on the world market for the treatment of hemophiliacs. As this involves pooling blood from huge numbers of donors to distill down the tiny quantities of clotting factors, well, you can imagine what happened. HIV happened. The NHS continued to be lazy into the early 90's with respect to Hepatitis C screening.
Why was this more important than, oh everything going on in the world? I mean, sad story but malfeasance nearly 50 years back? Because a big report was coming out that would recommend major financial compensation for the (few) survivors and the larger number of families.
So, the sub message is that blood donations are icky. I suspect donations are down in addition to the other factors. And hey, demonstrate to the cyber world that there are buckets of money involved in the business? Smart move UK.
T
They way things are, I am suspicious of any reports of Russian cyberattacks, especially if they come out of the UK. Might be true but the NHS is fully capable of screwing up their operations without help from the Russians or any other third party. And TPTB definitely don't want to have any bad vibes about their Precious. So blame the Russians.
Tacitus:
Same thing happened with the Red Cross on this side of the pond.
That's why Blood Services is a completely separate corporate entity from the rest of the American Red Cross: as a liability shield over the catastrophe that wiped out all the hemophiliacs in the US at the beginning of the AIDs crisis, and for the inevitable future foul-ups.
Yes. I recall as a Resident those hemophiliacs coming in for transfusions of Factor VIII. It's sad to think of what was happening right under our noses. We can try to be smarter. We in fact must try. But I agree with the general statement of "inevitable future foul-ups".
T
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