Low NHS Blood Stocks After Ransomware Attack

By Sheku Jusu-Sheriff

Marketing Manager, Africa Risk Management and Compliance Partners

Key facts about the attack:

• The London NHS suffered a ransomware attack in June 2024. It was carried out by Qlin on the NHS' service provider Synnovis resulting in disrupted patient care in London.
• NHS is appealing for people with O Positive and O Negative blood types to come forward to donate as hospitals in London struggle to keep critical services running after a ransomware attack
• The incident has left Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College NHS Foundation Trusts, and other NHS bodies in southeast London has resulted in delays to procedures and surgeries
• As a result of the Synnovis IT systems going down, hospitals couldn’t match patients’ blood at the same frequency as usual. This is because blood used for transplants has a shelf life of over a month, meaning they must be topped up constantly.
• A week after the ransomware attack became known, the NHS in London is still working under serious strain
• This is not the first time the NHS has suffered a ransomware attack with the entire NHS suffering a ransomware attack in 2022 which caused the NHS 111 phone number to go offline affecting the management systems for GP surgeries, care homes and mental health services.

What this incident shows us all is that Cybersecurity remains one of the biggest risks of our time, perhaps second only to Climate Risk. With 1.7 million ransomware attacks happening daily, it shows how important cybersecurity is. If Cybercriminals can attack the UK’s NHS again putting lives at risk then all Banks; Financial Institutions; and Private Hospitals across Sub-Saharan Africa should be focusing much more resources on improving their Cybersecurity.

At ARMC our Cybersecurity team offers very straightforward cybersecurity risk assessments for your business. We tell you what your cyber security gaps are and what action you can take to close them. To schedule a free consultation, please email [email protected]