The ultra-Orthodox Mayanei HaYeshua Medical Center, near Tel Aviv, has shut down its administrative computing systems and stopped admitting outpatients
| 8/08/2023 
The Mayanei HaYeshua Medical Center. Photo credit: Dr. Avishai Teicher via the PikiWiki - Israel free image collection project / Wikimedia Commons
Nearly two years after a massive cyber attack on the Israeli hospital Hille Yaffe, which took $10 million and months to recover from, another Israeli hospital is currently under attack.
The Israeli Ministry of Health and National Cyber Directorate announced that overnight, they were updated about a cyberattack on the Mayanei HaYeshua Medical Center, which led to the shutdown of administrative computing systems.
Mayanei HaYeshua is located in the ultra-Orthodox city Bnei-Brak, which borders Tel Aviv, and mostly caters to this population segment. According to the official announcement, medical equipment has not been affected, and the hospital staff continues to provide care to admitted patients. Outpatients are not currently being admitted, and patients in need of urgent care are requested to arrive at nearby hospitals.
"Fortunately, it was only the computer systems, and not medical equipment, that were affected. At least for now. It's not reasonable that in the year 2023 hospitals in the country are shut down and taken out of use for hours/days/weeks due to cyber attacks,” said Lior Frankel, CEO of cybersecurity company Waterfall Security and Chairman of the Cyber Forum at the Manufacturers Association of Israel's High-Tech Union.
“In any such attack, as we saw in the case of the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, private and governmental response teams arrive immediately and work to restore operations and investigate what actually happened. All of this is good and well, but it would have been more appropriate to be prepared in advance, to implement effective defense systems and methods that would have prevented the success of such attacks and the damage.”
Update from August 9th: Mayanei HaYeshua Medical Center announced that the attack is over. No additional details concerning ongoing damage or connection with the threat actors have been provided.
