#InformationLeak #China #Europe
Cyberattacks from China Targeting European Hospitals to Obtain Patient Records during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, some hospitals in Europe were said to have been targeted by cyberattacks from China, launched by Beijing in an attempt to access hospital records. Following the virtual EU-China summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on 22nd of June, "We have seen cyberattacks on hospitals and dedicated computing centres. Likewise, we’ve seen a rise in online disinformation, and we pointed out clearly that this cannot be tolerated." This was the European Commission President's first serious accusation of Beijing.

This statement from the European Commission President had brought to mind the many cyber incidents that had been happening during the pandemic. French weekly magazine Le Point had revealed that European hospitals had been facing large-scale cyberattacks from Chinese hackers since March. The atmosphere at the time was very tense, with multiple parties accusing China of concealing the severity of the pandemic, hence missing the prime window of opportunity to save tens of thousands of lives. At the same time, US President Trump had termed COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus" and criticised the World Health Organisation for answering to China.

Citing from insiders close to French officials, the report also revealed that the motive of China's large-scale cyberattacks was to obtain patient data, including the ages of hospitalised patients and concrete information regarding treatment, etc. The main purpose was perhaps to draw comparisons with China's own data, as well as to understand the development of the coronavirus beyond its borders.

On 22nd of March, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), manager of 39 hospitals in Paris and its suburbs, was subjected to a denial-of-service (DDos) attack on some of its computer servers. AP-HP was able to resolve the situation in time through various methods such as temporarily halting employees' access to emails and remote working tools. The Czech government had also revealed that its Brno University Hospital network faced a similar cyberattack on 13th of March.

Cyberattacks on healthcare systems are not isolated events. A report by the French Senate on 10th of June exposed the vulnerabilities of the cybersecurity of healthcare providers. The drafter of the report pointed out that the health sector had encountered 18 cyberattacks within a year, which was the result of the perpetual lack of funding in information security.

Earlier in June, NATO had also emphasised the severity of cyberattacks that were specifically targeting coronavirus-related healthcare service providers, hospitals and research centres. In late April, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell revealed as well that since the outbreak of coronavirus, high levels of phishing and malware spreading had been discovered, part of which concerned critical information on the infrastructure of the management of the coronavirus crisis. However, Borrell did not mention whether these incidents were linked to China.

Source: Radio France Internationale #Jun28