By Chris Vallance and Joe TidyBBC News
AFPMore than a hundred Romanian healthcare facilities have been hit by a ransomware attack, with some doctors forced to resort to pen and paper.
Children’s hospitals and emergency hospitals were among the hardest hit, while other facilities were closed as a precaution.
Cyber extortionists demanded 3.5 Bitcoins, worth more than £130,000, to unlock vital files they had encrypted.
But Romanian cyber officials said the data had recently been backed up, reducing the impact.
The attack took place largely on Monday night, according to a statement of the Romanian Ministry of Health and had targeted a widely used medical information system.
The incident is being investigated by IT specialists, including cybersecurity experts from the National Directorate of Cybersecurity (DNSC), the ministry said.
According to the DNSC, 25 hospitals were affected by the attack, starting with the Pitesti pediatric hospital.
The organization said another 79 health facilities were taken out of service while investigations were carried out to determine whether they had been affected.
Although authorities have identified the type of malware used, the group responsible has not yet been identified. The ransom note only includes an email address, officials wrote.
As most of the targeted hospitals have recent backups of data from the affected servers, it is expected that the facilities will be able to bounce back relatively quickly.
But the impact on patients is likely to be profound, as dozens of additional hospitals have had to turn off internet-connected devices as a precaution. This could, in theory, affect not only reservations and check-ins, but also machines such as MRI scanners.
The UK experienced a similar attack in 2017, which disrupted 80 of 236 hospital trusts across England and caused the cancellation or rearrangement of almost 7,000 appointments.
Following this incident, the NHS recognized there were “lessons to be learned” and made a number of changes.