Cyberattack diverts ambulances from Brussels hospital CHU Saint-Pierre

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre, a university hospital in Brussels, was hit by a cyberattack overnight from Friday, March 10 into Saturday, March 11, 2023. Servers began slowing around 01:00 and specialists confirmed abnormal activity on the network by about 04:00 on the Saturday.

Many applications went down, including patient records and telephone lines. Staff switched to paper as a precaution while medical equipment continued to function. Ambulances and other medical vehicles were redirected to nearby facilities over the weekend.

Chief executive Pierre Leroy said the hospital had an emergency plan already written for this kind of incident, prepared after earlier attacks on other Belgian hospitals. Management disconnected the servers and restarted them on the Saturday afternoon, keeping them off the internet, and said all IT applications were working again by that day. The hospital's public website was still unavailable the following Monday.

Leroy said no theft or leak of medical data had been observed but that the hospital had to remain cautious. The Federal Police and the Public Prosecutor's Office worked with the hospital, and no attacker, motive or ransom demand had been identified when the incident was reported. It was one of several attacks on European hospitals that week, alongside incidents at CHU Brest in France and Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.