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Russian Healthcare Ministry hit by large cyber attack

The ministry’s site was not functioning for 14 minutes during the DDoS attack

© AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/. Russian Healthcare Ministry’s official website has been targeted by a large hacker attack, Oleg Salagai, head of the ministry’s public health and communications department, told TASS on Saturday.

"Russia Healthcare Ministry’s technical services have repelled cyber attacks, the largest in recent years," he said.

On Friday night, the healthcare ministry’s information assets were hit by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack with four million requests per minute at its height.

The ministry’s site was not functioning for 14 minutes during the DDoS attack, he said.

"The (cyber) attack had no consequences. However, the work of the ministry’s official website was temporarily suspended," he said, adding "neither personal data nor medical confidential information were affected since they are stored in a protected area, not connected to the Internet."

Minister Veronika Skvortsova ordered to put the ministry’s information assets to an additional test.

"They are functioning normally now," Salagai said.

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