NHS trusts in the UK have had information stolen. This occurred in a recent cyberattack on the health service. Experts have raised serious concerns about this breach. Patient data might be vulnerable in such incidents. Two specific trusts were named as exposed. University College London Hospitals is one of them. University Hospital Southampton is the other affected trust. NHS England is currently monitoring the situation closely. They are working with the UK’s National Cybersecurity Centre. Cody Barrow of EclecticIQ highlighted these risks. His firm uncovered the full extent of this incident.
This was not a typical ransomware attack scenario. Instead, sensitive data was taken clandestinely by hackers. They exploited vulnerabilities found in specific software. The software was Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM). This program helps businesses manage employee mobile phones. The critical software hole was first discovered on May 15th. Ivanti has since released a patch to fix it. However, a warning has been issued by security experts. Systems exploited before the fix could remain vulnerable. This flaw allowed hackers broad access to target systems. EclecticIQ identified victims of this hack globally.
Experts at EclecticIQ detailed the types of data accessed.
This stolen information included staff phone numbers. Device IMEI numbers were also compromised by the attackers. Technical data was also among the stolen items. This included important authentication tokens for systems. Such attacks can unfortunately lead to further problems. Hackers might subsequently access other sensitive data. This could include confidential patient health records. They could also potentially reach further network segments. This is often achieved through remote code execution (RCE).
RCE allows running programs on already compromised systems.
Analysts have identified the hackers’ IP address. It appears to be based in mainland China. This IP address was used to exploit the Ivanti backdoor. The operational methods of these hackers are also notable. Their behavior is similar to previous China-based threat actors. Such attacks can occur through automated internet scans. Hackers scan widely for instances of vulnerable software. These are often not specifically targeted attacks at first. They find and exploit known software weaknesses. This method allows for widespread compromise attempts globally. Constant vigilance against such exploits is therefore crucial.
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