Cannes hospital responds to LockBit ransom attack demands

The LockBit ransomware group claimed responsibility for the April 16th attack on the Hôpital de Cannes in southern France, already offering up an alleged 61GB of the stolen data to the highest bidder on the dark web.

The LockBit ransomware group posted the French hospital on its dark leak site late Monday evening, giving the healthcare facility a 48-hour deadline to meet its ransom demands.

As soon as the May 1st deadline came and went, as promised, LockBit posted a link to the stolen data, seemingly to entice buyers. The gang claims to have exfiltrated 61.7GB from Hôpital de Cannes networks.

The early morning ransomware attack on the Cannes hospital led to the cancellation of about a third of non-emergency surgeries throughout the week and forced medical staff to use paper and pens to handwrite patient charts.

Emergency services were not interrupted as services were ported to neighboring hospitals.

Still in the process of a full system recovery, hospital officials addressed the latest LockBit demands on the social media platform X soon after the gang posted its ransom deadline.

“On April 16th, 2024, CH Cannes was the subject of a cyberattack targeting its information system. Today, the establishment became aware of a ransom demand from the hacker group LockBit3.0,” the hospital said, translated to English.

In a series of subsequent posts, the hospital also stated that it had informed law enforcement about the ransom claim, and notified the National Agency for Information Systems Security (ANSSI).

“Public health establishments never pay ransom in the face of this type of attack,” the hospital clearly stated in French at about 7:30 p.m. CEST.

CH Cannes also commented that it would notify patients and stakeholders if the ransom gang decided to leak any of the stolen data. At the time of this report, there has been no statement from the Hôpital de Cannes about the alleged link posted on the LockBit site.

Last seen April 30th on X, the hospital's final post was a thank you to “all our partners for their support and understanding.”

Located on the French Riviera, the 869-bed hospital provides services for approximately 150,000 outpatients, 50,000 emergency room visits, 9,000 surgeries, and 1,500 births each year, with over 2000 doctors and staff.