The provincial government is confirming that regional health authorities have been hit by a cyber attack that has rendered most of their critical systems unavailable.
The incident was discovered early Saturday morning according to Pat Hepditch the Vice President of Solutions and Infrastructure with the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Health Information.
He says they heard from both Central Health and Eastern Health and it soon became clear that they were looking at a “pretty extensive outage in the IT infrastructure supporting the RHAs.”
Haggie says they have discovered that there have been impacts in Western Health and as of this morning their system was brought offline. As a result there will be several reductions in service @VOCMNEWS
— Richard Duggan (@RDugganVOCM) November 3, 2021
Health Minister John Haggie says Western Health is also affected and has now been taken offline affecting a wide range of non-emergency services.
Haggie says security experts and law enforcement authorities have been contacted and are investigating.
He told reporters this morning that those involved in the attack may be monitoring what’s being said in the media and on the floor of the house. That’s why, he says, it’s important that they don’t do or say anything that will compromise the efforts underway to investigate and resolve the matter.
Pat Hepditch of the NL Centre for Health Information says it's difficult to speak to timelines but restoration work is under way. He says they have to proceed slowly to ensure the systems that are online are safe @VOCMNEWS
— Richard Duggan (@RDugganVOCM) November 3, 2021