Health Ministry of Kuwait is trying its best to regain its lost ground, mostly after a recent cyberattack it suffered. The cyberattack was reportedly targeted at several hospitals and even the healthcare app Sahel. The Ministry immediately began working towards restoring the systems.
Impact of Cyber Attack
The Health Ministry’s website is still down from Thursday afternoon. However, the ministry issued a statement through the Kuwait News Agency stating that the cyberattack did indeed disrupt the services of a good number of hospitals across the country. Kuwait has about 36 hospitals, including 20 public ones.
Apart from the above challenges, Kuwait has one of the best health care systems in the entire Gulf region. There is a genuine effort on the side of the authorities to keep the basic health care services running. They want the primary healthcare centers and the public hospitals to carry on attending to their patients.
The Kuwait Cancer Control Center restored its systems using backups. Additionally, the team restored the national health insurance system and the expatriate check-up system. It still emphasizes to keep running the essential services.
Government Steps for Telecom and Cyber Security
How the Attack Occurred
According to them, they now know how the hackers entered their systems. They reiterated that everything was done to protect critical health care services. They collaborated with government security agencies to contain the problem. Their main aim was to stop the attack from spreading to other systems.
It says that hackers were not able to access critical databases. Still, due to updates through installments, the ministry had to shut down some systems. This will enhance security and prevent attacks in the future. They do not know when they will restore all of the systems but promised the public soon.
Ransomware Threats Around the World
No ransomware group has so far taken responsibility for the cyberattack. This is the newest developing trend in Kuwait. Earlier, during 2023, there was an attack by a group labeled as Rhysida on the Ministry of Finance. The attack happened exactly a year ago on September 25, 2023.
In 2022, several Ikea outlets had been targeted by the Vice Society ransomware gang. It feels that Vice Society could have a connection to Rhysida. The phenomena of ransomware in Kuwait are serious matters.
This has now been proven by a cybersecurity consortium report. In 2023, the ransomware gangs attacked over 117 countries. This is a new record. As many as 6,670 ransomware attacks had been tracked last year. Shocking: this marked a relative increase of 73% compared to the previous year.
Everything that Kuwait’s Health Ministry is doing to recover from this cyberattack, at this moment, focuses on restoring services and protecting patient data. It is working towards improving their systems through support from the right government security agencies.
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Indeed, the dangers of ransomware attacks have increased lately all over the world, and this is not specific to Kuwait. Everyone has to be more cautious, though, especially on cybersecurity.
This current situation reminds everyone how important it is to defend our systems, especially in health care.
It will take hard work and cooperation for the resurgence of Kuwait to recreate and strengthen health care services in that nation. Commitment to quality health care remains strong, even in the face of such challenges.
