Britain’s National Health Service Shut Down by ‘Cyberattack’

Britain’s National Health Services was reportedly hit hard by an IT failure on Friday over a large-scale cyberattack, several sources are reporting. Hospitals, websites, phones, and trusts in Blackburn, Cumbria, Nottingham, and Hertfordshire have been affected. Doctors have reportedly shut down computers to protect the information and resorted to pen and paper, one local paper reported. Phone and IT systems in the organization have all been downed. All non-urgent activity in many of the facilities has been postponed, and some area hospitals have sent out alerts telling patients not to come. Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Trust said it shut down all IT systems after a “secure system attack.” A physician in York said he received an order to “switch off all of our computers immediately.” He added, “We have since remained open, and are dealing with things that can be dealt with in the meanwhile.”