Table 4.
Different Cyber-attacks / data breaches in healthcare and academic organizations at the peak of COVID-19 crisis in summary as reported.
| S/No | Date of cyber-attack | Country of Cyber- attack | Organization | Report and impact of the attack | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 13 March 2020 | Czech Republic | University hospital in Brno | The IT network went down, causing important surgeries to be postponed and emergency medical services to be jeopardized. | (https://www.zdnet.com/article/czechhospital-hit-by-cyber-attack-while-in-the-midst-of-acovid-19-outbreak/). |
| 2 | 13 March 2020 | Worldwide | World Health Organization (WHO) | Making a rogue website that looked like the WHO's official email system in order to steal employee passwords. According to WHO Chief Information Security Officer Flavio Aggio, the attack was unsuccessful. DarkHotel, a gang of sophisticated hackers, is suspected by many sources, according to Reuters. | (https://tech.newstatesman.com/security/who-cyberattack-covid19). |
| 3 | 14 March 2020 | United Kingdom | Hammersmith Medicines ResearchGroup, UK (COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Group) |
A ransomware attack resulted in the disclosure of previous patients' private details, as well as an unsuccessful attempt to deactivate the network. | (https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252480425/Cyber-gangsters-hit-UK-medical-research-lorganisationpoised-for-work-on-Coronavirus). |
| 4 | 16 March 2020 | United States of America | Health and Human Services (HHS) Department | HHS servers were subjected to an unspecified attack. |
(https://tech.newstatesman.com/security/us-healthhuman-services-department-cyber-attack). |
| 5 | 22 March 2020 | France | Paris Hospital Authority (AP-HP) | An attack on AP-HP servers that has not been identified. | (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020–0323/paris-hospitals-target-of-failed-cyber-attackauthority-says). |
| 6 | 4 April 2020 | United Kingdom and Spain |
Healthcare Workers | An attempt was made to disable anti-virus software as part of a ransomware attack. | (https://www.computing.co.uk/news/4012969/hospitalscoronavirus-ransomware; https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/04/neither-covid-19nor-cyber-criminals-care-who-gets-infected-andsuffers/). |
| 7 | 13 May 2020 | United Kingdom |
ARCHER Academic High- Performance Computing(HPC) network |
It was an exploitation of login nodes to force all user passwords to be rewritten | (https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/13/uk_archer_supercomputer_cyberattack/). |
| 8 | 13 May 2020 | United Kingdom |
Bam Construct and Interserve (Companies who helped construct temporary COVID-19 hospitals for the UK’s National Health Service) | Unknown type of attack | (https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/contractors/bamconstruct/bam-construct-hit-by-cyber-attack-13–052020/). |
| 9 | 10 June 2020 | Iraq | Babylon Health (Appointment and video conferencing software for NHS doctors) |
Due to a software flaw, there was a data leak. | (https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/europe/babylon-health-admits-gp-hand-app-data-breach-caused software-issue). |
| 10 | 16 July 2020 | United States, United Kingdom and Canadian authorities | Governments | It was unspecified state-sponsored cyber-threats on institutions developing COVID-19 vaccines are alleged. | (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/russian -state-sponsored-hackers-target-covid-19-vaccineresearchers). |