An MSP breached, taking down the UK’s NHS

Well, with a headline like this, I couldn’t miss it.  “UK NHS suffers outage after a cyberattack on the managed service provider.”     The MSP, Advanced, delivers a client-patient management system, used by 85% of NHS 111 services, and was taken offline by the attack. Public access to Advanced’s status page is now blocked by a login form allowing access only to customers and employees. Advanced’s Chief Operating Officer Simon Short confirmed that the incident was caused by a cyberattack detected on Thursday morning.  BleepingComputer noted that while no details were provided regarding the nature of the cyberattack, based on the wording, it is likely that this was ransomware or data extortion attack.

Messing with the NHS in the UK is a big deal, so don’t dismiss the bad PR on this one.  The BBC covered it.        This weekend I have an interview with a corporate espionage expert, and one of the directions he focused on is how small suppliers are avenues to larger prey.     This screams that… putting that MSP right in the crosshairs.     And that’s why we care.