Security News > 2021 > May > Unsuccessful Conti Ransomware Attack Still Packs Costly Punch

Ireland's department of health services continues to grapple with a ransomware attack that occurred last week by the Conti gang.

Officials state the attack will cost tens of millions to repair, even though attackers were not successful in their attempt to encrypt systems on Ireland's Department of Health systems.

"Hundreds of people" are still "Working flat out" to get all Ireland DoH services and systems up and running, Irish Health Minister Stephen Donnelly tweeted late Monday as an update to the attack that occurred last week.

The incident that affected the DoH was part of a one-two punch that came with a separate attack that affected the Irish Health Service Executive, which also was attributed to Conti gang.

Officials seem to have first noticed the incident on the HSE network, with investigators identifying "a human-operated 'Conti' ransomware attack that had severely disabled a number of systems and necessitated the shutdown of the majority of other HSE systems."

The Conti ransomware gang claims to have had access to the HSE network for two weeks prior to the NCSC noticing the attack, according to the report in BleepingComputer, which said it viewed a screenshot of a chat between Conti and Ireland's HSE. During that period, attackers said they stole 700 gigabytes of unencrypted files from the HSE, including patient info and employee info, contracts, financial statements, payroll and more.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/conti-ransomware-fail-costly/166263/