Possible ransomware attack hits Italian vaccine booking system
A cyber attack on a regional Italian government’s IT system shut down Covid-19 vaccination bookings for nearly a week, but attribution remains cloudy.
On 2 August 2021, hackers launched a malware attack on the IT system of the health department of Lazio, the highly-populated region surrounding Rome, forcing its official website and Covid vaccine booking system to go down after a large number of files were encrypted.
In the immediate wake of the attack, regional governor Nicola Zingaretti said it had been launched “by persons unknown… from outside the country,” but described it as being of a “criminal or terrorist nature”. In a bid to halt the spread of the malware, all computer servers belonging to the region’s government were shut down. Vaccine reservations began again on 5 August using a new website. A temporary version of Lazio’s website was launched on 9 August. Regional officials expect other digital services to be up and running again in the coming days and weeks.
