Held to ransom

Russian cyber gang behind áttack on NHS

- MARTIN BAGOT

RUSSIAN cyber crooks are holding major hospitals to ransom after hacking an NHS contractor.

Operations and tests had to be cancelled after Monday's ransomware assault on private firm Synnovis, which runs some NHS pathology services.

Ciaran Martin, former chief of the National Cyber Security Centre, said the hack has led to a severe reduction in capacity and is very serious.

He blamed it on a group of Russian cyber criminals called Qilin, adding: "These criminal groups operate freely from within Russia.