Lok Sabha Question No. 1837 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-12-16
Subject: Cyber-attack in AIIMS
Ministry: HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE
Asked by: Sushil Kumar Singh, Adoor Prakash, Gautham Sigamani Pon, Sajda Ahmed, Anto  Antony, Jai Prakash, Hanuman Beniwal, Rakesh Singh

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE

## DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1837 TO BE ANSWERED ON 16 th  DECEMBER, 2022

## CYBER-ATTACK IN AIIMS

## 1837    SHRI SUSHIL KUMAR SINGH:

ADV. ADOOR PRAKASH:

DR. PON GAUTHAM SIGAMANI:

SHRIMATI SAJDA AHMED:

SHRI ANTO ANTONY:

SHRI JAI PRAKASH:

SHRI HANUMAN BENIWAL:

SHRI RAKESH SINGH:

## Will the Minister of HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE be pleased to state:

- (a)  whether  the  Government  has  conducted  any  probe/inquiry  with  regard  to  cyber-attack  in which the servers of AIIMS, Delhi have been hacked and if so, the details thereof;
- (b) whether the data of the patient/doctors/officials have been breached by the hackers and if so, the  details  thereof  along  with  number  of  patient/doctors/officials  whose  data  have  been prima facie exposed;
- (c) whether the hackers have demanded ransom and if so, the details thereof and the response of the Government thereto;
- (d) whether the servers could not be normalized even days after the cyber-attack and if so, the details thereof along with the reasons therefor;
- (e) the details of measures taken by the Government to ensure the IT/cyber security in important institutions like AIIMS along with the steps taken by the Government to secure its various digital programs including Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission;
- (f)  the  necessary  efforts  being  made by the Government to reduce the patient load on AIIMS, Delhi and to ensure better treatment across territorial AIIMS; and
- (g)  whether  the  cyber  attack  affected  day  to  day  operations/surgeries  etc.  and  whether  any mechanism  has  been  adopted  to  ensure  real  time  emergency  bed  availability  and  integrated unified dashboard of bed status in AIIMS and if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE (DR. BHARATI PRAVIN PAWAR)

- (a)  to  (g):  A  First  Information  Report  (FIR)  No.  349/22  has  been  registered  by  the  All  India Institute  of  Medical  Sciences  with  the  Special  Cell  of  Delhi  Police  under  relevant  sections  of law, regarding the incident of cyber-attack.

Five physical servers of AIIMS, New Delhi on which e-Hospital application of NIC was hosted,  were  affected.  No  specific  amount  of  ransom  was  demanded  by  the  hackers  though  a message was discovered on the server suggesting that it was a cyber- attack. All the data for eHospital  has  been  retrieved  from  a  backup  server  which  was  unaffected  and  restored  on  new servers.  Most of the functions of e-Hospital application like patient registration, appointment, admission, discharge etc. have been restored after two weeks of the cyber-attack.

The  National  Nodal  Agency  for  responding  to  cyber  security  incidents  i.e.  Indian Computer  Emergency  Response  Team  (CERT-In)  has  'Empanelled Information Security Auditing Organizations' for auditing including vulnerability assessment and penetration testing of the  computer  systems,  networks  and  applications  involving  public  service  delivery  including Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Immediate measures were taken by AIIMS, Delhi to enhance the security like endpoint hardening, string firewall policies and network segmentation to secure all the data of the Institute.

To reduce the patient load on AIIMS, Delhi, setting up of 22 new AIIMS and 75 projects of  upgradation  of  existing  Government  medical  colleges/institutions  by  way  of  setting  up  of superspeciality  blocks/trauma  centres  have  been  approved  under  Pradhan  Mantri  Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) and are at various stages of offering inpatient and outpatient services to the needy.

The day to day operations/surgeries as well as associated activities and record keeping was done in a manual mode. In AIIMS, Delhi, the dashboard for the real time emergency bed availability has been developed in-house.

*****