While no ransom was paid, the financial costs of recovery from a cyber attack on the Irish health care system six months ago have been high, and are continuing to mount.

Aengus Cox, a journalist with the Irish national broadcaster RTÉ, says the estimated cost of bringing health care systems back up and working through the backlog of patients is in the hundreds of millions of Euro.

He says while no data appears to be lost, authorities have indicated that the financial costs of recovery is about $100 million Euro, and could go even higher.

Cox says the situation facing Newfoundland and Labrador is very similar to what Irish officials were facing.

He says in Ireland, data involving a relatively small number of patients ended up on the dark web.

He says the Health Service in Ireland revealed that the personal health data of some 520 patients was published on the dark web, followed by reports of patients being contacted by strangers offering lower rates for treatment of their illness.

There was no evidence of large-scale data leaks, says Cox.