Italian Vaccination Registration System Hit by Ransomware: Appointments Affected

One of Italy’s largest regions was a target of an attack that affected the vaccination registration system, consequently impeding the booking of new appointments.

Residents of Lazio, one of the twenty administrative regions of Italy, face obstruction in the booking of new appointments because of an attack as reported on Facebook by the region’s president Nicola Zingaretti.

Allan Liska, a member of CSIRT at Recorded Future, identified the attack to be a ransomware attack even though initial reports did not disclose it as such.

Zingaretti communicated more details on the attack in the Facebook post saying that the attackers encrypted almost all files in the system’s data center leaving them useless. The region’s health network also had to be shut down following the attack in order to mitigate the potential damage and limit the breach from spreading.

Hackers have a long history of encrypting files in a system in attempts to obtain payment for the decryption key. This very reason prompted Liska to classify the attack as ransomware.

“This comes from reviewing hundreds of interviews of towns and schools hit by ransomware. Even when they don’t use the term ‘ransomware,’ they almost always mention files being inaccessible,” Liska said.

The attack took place on the weekend, possibly because weekends see fewer employees on site and, therefore, hackers get a chance to pass by without being noticed.