Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 23 June 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Update on the Cyberattack, Covid-19 Vaccination Roll-out and Covid-19 Restrictions in Maternity Hospitals: Health Service Executive

Mr. Paul Reid:

I will say a few things on that, and I will call on my colleague Mr. Thompson, from what we have seen of the restoration process. If one stands back from this, it is fair to say that there were obvious vulnerabilities because the ransomware attack happened. What we are seeing across many organisations, not just health providers but private financial providers, is the increasing occurrence of these attacks. We had this on our risk register going back, in terms of potential impacts, and we had taken a number of actions to protect against it. I have no doubt that from this process, and the reports we will get on the assessment of the impact, there will be significant learnings about further protections we and, in fact, the whole of Government and no doubt, Departments, can put in place. Suffice to say, we and the world are dealing with highly complex, highly sophisticated, highly skilled criminal organisations that have the capacity and due to increased investments from various sources, including ransoms paid, to increase their capacity and capabilities. That is what we are up against and the whole world needs to raise its game around cyber controls. I will ask my colleague, Mr. Thompson, to give an example of an immediate learning on this.