A critical incident has been declared by Synnovis – the pathology system provider to London hospitals Guy’s and St. Thomas, and King’s College.
The cyber attack against Synnovis has forced the hospitals to disconnect from Synnovis servers meaning that crucial services such as blood transfusions cannot be managed. This is having the knock-on effect of causing hospital services such as operations to either be cancelled, or diverted to other locations.
Supply chain attack (again)
Synnovis is a partnership between SYNLAB UK & Ireland, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS trust and King’s College Hospital NHS trust. Synnovis also provide services to the Royal Brompton hospital, and Harefield hospital.
The attack comes just a few weeks after SYNLAB Italy suffered a similar cyber attack that disrupted laboratories, medical centers, sampling stations, and telephony systems.
Synnovis operates a hub and spoke system, whereby hospitals operate onsite laboratories (spokes) that provide essential services for departments such as A&E, and a central hub which is based at Friars Bridge Court, Blackfriars Road conducts all other pathology services. This hub is one of the largest in the UK.
At the moment, no official statement has been released by Synnovis regarding the incident, but some sources have unofficially said that the company has been hit with a ransomware attack.
