Pathology services provider Synnovis has confirmed that patient personal information was stolen in a June 2024 ransomware attack that severely disrupted operations across multiple London hospitals. Synnovis, a joint venture between King’s College Hospitals NHS Trust, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and SYNLAB, provides critical pathology services across southeast London.

The ransomware attack crippled all IT systems, forcing hospitals to cancel procedures and divert patients. While Synnovis chose not to pay the ransom, it collaborated with authorities to rebuild its infrastructure from scratch, taking until late 2024 to restore services. The Qilin ransomware gang later claimed responsibility, publishing approximately 400GB of stolen data. The organization has since confirmed that the compromised information includes names, dates of birth, NHS numbers, and in some cases, test results. The subsequent forensic investigation took over a year due to the unstructured and fragmented nature of their data.

This incident highlights the urgent need for a next-generation unified approach to cybersecurity. Traditional, siloed tools cannot adequately defend against today’s advanced and multi-layered threats. Organizations must instead adopt a consolidated defense architecture, like NIKSUN, that integrates SIEM, NDR, EDR / XDR, TI / TIP, IDS, and Network Forensics into a single, intelligent ecosystem. Such a unified platform enables real-time detection, contextual threat correlation, automated response, and deep forensic visibility - dramatically reducing the risk of breaches and their devastating operational and reputational fallout. Only through this cohesive strategy can healthcare and other critical sectors achieve true cyber resilience.