With news that Health Sciences North, along with several other hospitals, have been hit with a computer virus that is forcing the cancellation of surgeries and other procedures, Police Services Board chair and Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini asked whether police computers were vulnerable to a similar attack.
HSN began noticing problems with its computer system at 8 a.m. on Jan. 15. Two days later, on Jan. 17, HSN confirmed a computer virus had infected some of its systems, disprupting program, causing longer wait times in the emergency department, and affecting systems at 24 other hospitals in northeastern Ontario.
Elective procedures and surgeries had to be rescheduled. In addition, chemotherapy and radiation therapy treatments were cancelled at the North East Cancer Centre and satellite clinics.
Patients were being rescheduled for treatment into this weekend, said HSN.
As a preventive measure, systems at HSN were put on downtime, successfully avoiding dissemination of the virus, said HSN, said Dominic Giroux in a series of tweets.
The incident prompted Police Services Board chair Michael Vagnini to ask what the service has in place to prevent similar situations from happening.
“What do we have in place?” Vagnini asked.
Police CAO Sharon Baiden said keeping the system safe is a big priority, and they have firewalls in place to secure data. They also conduct regular security audits in which they contract specialized companies to try and hack their system to look for security flaws.
“We also maintain a comprehensive data backup,” she said, with a full copy of vital data kept secured in case of an issue.
HSN CEO Dominic Giroux said there is no evidence to suggest that privacy of patient information has been breached as a result of the virus that has impacted hospital operations.
