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SickKids reports cybersecurity issue affecting some phone lines and web pages

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The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto is shown on Thursday, April 5, 2018. Some phone lines and internal clinical systems have been impacted by a "cybersecurity incident" at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, but the hospital said there is no indication personal health information has been compromised. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Doug Ives

TORONTO — Some phone lines and internal clinical systems at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children have been affected by a "cybersecurity incident," but the hospital says there's no indication personal health information has been compromised.

Canada's largest pediatric health-care centre said a Code Grey – the hospital code for system failure – was called Sunday night at 9:30 p.m. and remains in place as it responds to what happened.

SickKids wrote in a statement Monday night that patient care was unaffected "at this time" and there was "currently no evidence that personal information or personal health information" had been affected.

"Upon learning of this incident, we immediately activated the hospital's incident management command centre and launched an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident," the statement read.

The hospital said at the time that it appeared only a few internal clinical and corporate systems had been affected, along with some hospital phone lines and web pages.

"We have notified our government and hospital partners and have engaged with third parties to resolve the incident as soon as possible," the statement read.

SickKids said the public might experience difficulties calling the hospital and accessing some web pages, such as its health information site and its careers application portal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 20, 2022.

The Canadian Press


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