Galway cyber expert believes state should have paid hackers

The HSE should have paid the ransom to the hackers instead of shutting down all the systems causing chaos for patients, a top cyberattack expert from Galway believes.

Professor Kevin Curran said he believed $20 million – the reputed ransom demand by the criminals for returning the data stolen – was “not that much for a health system”.

He said the cost of leaking private patient data will likely be far higher as will the cost of getting the systems back functioning and shoring up security to thwart another one.

“Most health systems have been attacked at this stage. Health systems have so many legacy systems, so many third parties like chemists and medical labs with access. Everybody is just trying to patch it over time,” the University of Ulster academic explains.

“In Covid there were so many remote sites. And it takes just one mistake of clicking on something you shouldn’t. I would have paid it because of the nature of the impact it has. They could have charged a lot more.”

Kevin Curran was born in London but moved when he was aged four to Oughterard, where his father grew up. His parents still live in Rusheeney, two miles outside the Connemara town.

Read the full interview with Professor Kevin Curran in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie