The Dubai branch of Moorfields Eye Hospital has been subject to an “IT security incident” which affected its servers.
The trust confirmed it was conducting an “urgent and thorough” investigation to determine the cause of the incident.
A message on the hospital’s website, which is understood to have appeared on August 15, confirmed the incident was linked to “cyber criminals”.
“We have been undertaking an urgent and thorough investigation to understand what happened,” the message added.
“At this time, we do not believe patient health records have been compromised. However, some Dubai patient identification information was accessed.
“We take the privacy of our patients very seriously and we have contacted all affected patients to let them know about the incident. Working with a leading cyber security specialist agency, we have also taken proactive measures to strengthen our network and website security.”
The notice goes on to confirm that the hospital will “continue to offer our full range of services and we advise all patients to attend their appointments as scheduled”.
While the hospital has not confirmed who was behind the attack, ransomware group AvosLocker has claimed responsibility on their website.
The group have claimed they have 60GB of data and have threatened to leak this information if a ransom demand is not met.
Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai was established in 2006 to provide eyecare in the Middle East. The hospital also aims to “contribute to education and research programs to encourage and facilitate world-class teaching within the region”.