The final quarter of the year began with a worrying ransomware attack on IT systems at a number of hospitals and health services in Victoria, including University Hospital Geelong. The Victorian Cyber Incident Response Service was deployed and worked with affected health services to respond to the attack, and hospitals isolated and disconnected a number of systems and the internet to quarantine the infection.

The attack is thought to involve ransomware called Ryuk coupled with Emotet and TrickBot malware that has been targeting large enterprises internationally, including healthcare systems in the US and Canada. While it does not appear to have affected any patient records or clinical systems, booking and appointment systems were shut off and some surgeries and outpatient clinics had to be postponed. Hospitals reverted to manual processes and paper, and it took up to a week to restore some clinical systems. External email and internet access took longer to restore at some health services.