More than 100 Dutch dental practices temporarily closed after cyber attack – update

In the coming days, 120 Dutch dental practices of the company Colosseum Dental Benelux will have to close due to a cyber attack. It is believed to be a ransomware attack. It is not known if customer data has been stolen.

Colosseum Dental Benelux has reported this to the police and has made a report to the Dutch Data Protection Authority, as we know RTL News to report. In the event of a data breach, companies are obliged to report this to the AP, although the dental company itself has not provided a definite answer about the nature of the attack. A spokesperson tells the news channel: “Where necessary, we will also contact those whose interests may be affected by this incident.”

A source with connections within Colosseum Dental tells Tweakers that it is indeed a ransomware attack. The cybercriminals would have penetrated the overarching system of Colosseum Dental Benelux via one of the 120 practices, after which backups would have been deleted and everything was encrypted. According to anonymous people involved, money was indeed demanded and there would be threats of data leakage. It is not clear exactly how much money is being requested.

The affected umbrella company has more than 130 locations in the Netherlands and Belgium, but only the approximately 120 dental practices in the Netherlands would have been the target of the attack. Every year, about 600,000 patients are treated by the dentists of Colosseum Dental Benelux, according to a snapshot of the website from the company. The website in question is currently not accessible.

In a ransomware attack, a victim’s systems are encrypted, effectively making them unusable. Only against payment do cyber criminals decrypt a target system. Sometimes data is also stolen during such an attack or access is not granted to the affected system even after a possible payment.

Update, 9:05 PM: The data subject’s information has been added to the message.