Stolen test data and NHS numbers published by hospital hackers

A gang of cyber criminals causing huge disruption to multiple London hospitals have published sensitive patient data stolen from an NHS blood testing company.

Overnight last Thursday, Qilin shared almost 400GB of the private information on their darknet site.

The gang has been trying to extort money from NHS provider Synnovis since they hacked the firm on 3 June.

Cyber security expert Ciaran Martin told the BBC it was "one of the most significant and harmful cyber attacks ever in the UK… And it could be several months before systems were restored.”

A sample of the data seen by the BBC includes patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers and descriptions of blood tests. It is not known if test results are also in the data.

The hack has also resulted in more than 3,000 hospital and GP appointments and operations being disrupted.

Qilin previously told the BBC they would publish the data unless they got paid.

There are also business account spreadsheets detailing financial arrangements between hospitals and GP services and Synnovis.

NHS England told the BBC it was aware of the publication but could not be completely sure the shared data was real.

- CyberBeat