Scourge · June 3 2024

In Memoriam: the Synnovis Attack

Chronicle

On 3 June 2024 ransomware from the Qilin gang disabled Synnovis, the pathology provider for the Guy's and St Thomas' and King's College Hospital trusts in south-east London. In the first week alone more than 800 planned operations and 700 outpatient appointments were postponed, and blood-transfusion services were severely disrupted, prompting the NHS to appeal for O-type blood donors. Qilin later leaked about 400 GB of patient-related data. In June 2025 King's College Hospital said that a patient had died unexpectedly during the attack and that its safety investigation had found a long wait for a blood test result, caused by the attack, among the contributing factors.

Lesson learned

It is one of the first cases in which a hospital has publicly acknowledged a cyberattack as a contributing factor in a patient's death. It showed that healthcare suppliers such as pathology labs are part of patient care, and how much donors' solidarity matters in an emergency.

How it is remembered

Remembered by protecting critical healthcare suppliers as carefully as hospitals themselves, preparing manual procedures for urgent tests and, for those who can, giving blood.