More than 100 dental practices closed for days due to cyber attack

More than 100 dental practices closed for days due to cyber attack
More than 100 dental practices closed for days due to cyber attack
--

The company has also informed the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP). Colosseum Dental Benelux confirms this after questions from RTL Z.

Companies are obliged to inform the AP when there is a data breach. “Where necessary, we are also contacting those whose interests may have been affected by this incident,” said a spokesperson for Colosseum Dental Benelux.

120 locations closed

Dental practices in the Netherlands have been closed since Thursday due to the attack. It is unclear what exactly happened.

The company considers it a ‘cyber incident’, which affects approximately 120 Dutch locations. Colosseum Dental expects the practices to slowly reopen next week.

Characteristics of a ransomware attack

According to a well-established source, staff do not have access to customer patient history. “Unfortunately, this has all the hallmarks of a ransomware attack,” said Dave Maasland, CEO of cybersecurity company ESET Netherlands.

“The shutdown of an operation, not being able to access systems or websites, reporting to the police and a report to the AP, all point in that direction,” says Maasland. He does not rule out the possibility that it could be another type of attack, but considers that chance small. “Unfortunately, in the current wave of cyber incidents, it’s almost always ransomware.”

Restore systems

The company is currently working on restoring the systems and is investigating the incident with external parties. Due to the ongoing investigation, the spokesperson does not want to share more information. He does not want to share which party is behind the incident, and whether patient data has been stolen.

Colosseum Dental Benelux has more than 130 locations in the Netherlands and Belgium, which treat approximately 600,000 patients annually. The attack only affected the approximately 120 Dutch branches. A spokesperson said that Belgium or other countries are not involved in the incident.

The article is in Dutch

Tags: dental practices closed days due cyber attack

-

PREV Canva acquires Affinity design software maker – Computer – News
NEXT Schiphol is allowed to pass on corona losses to companies