Another Indian pharmaceutical giant reports cybersecurity breach within two weeks of ransomware hack on Dr Reddy’s

• Indian pharmaceutical company Lupin has confirmed an ‘information security incident’ that has affected multiple internal systems.
• The incident comes within weeks of a ransomware attack on Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.
• The average cost of a data breach in the healthcare industry is $7.3 million — 84% higher than the global average across all sectors.

Another leading Indian pharmaceutical, Lupin, has reported a cybersecurity attack on its IT systems within two weeks of a ransomware attack on Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.

“We have recently experienced an information security incident that has affected several of our internal IT systems. This has not impacted our core systems and operations,” Lupin told Hindu Business Line in a statement.

In October, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories had to ‘isolate’ its servers and took ‘preventive actions’ in the wake of a ransomware attack. The attack also reportedly forced the company to shut down its manufacturing facilities across the world to minimise the attack’s impact.

The incidence of hackers trying to breach the firewalls of the healthcare industry have only increased during the coronavirus pandemic.To be fair, the Indian healthcare industry isn’t particularly careful about connecting to the internet.

For instance, in June, the CEO of Hackrew and IIT Guwahati graduate Sai Krishna Kothapalli was able to view, edit and delete classified personal information of lakhs of patients all over India.

Healthcare industry faces the most expensive data breaches
“Financially motivated criminal groups continue to target this industry via ransomware attacks,” said Verizon’s annual Data Breach Investigations Report 2020. To make matters worse, the average cost of a cybersecurity breach in the healthcare industry is higher than any other sector at a whopping $7.3 million.


Even though this figure varies across geographies, the average cost of a data breach in healthcare has been the most expensive for over a decade, according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach 2020 report. This year was a 10% increase over 2019 and 84% higher than the global average.

Healthcare industry takes nearly a year to track down cybersecurity issues
While some data breaches can be attributed to human error or a system glitch, already 50% of them in the healthcare sector are due to malicious attacks.

The healthcare industry also takes the longest amount of time to detect a breach and then contain the attack. IBM pegs the average time to around 329 days — that’s nearly a full year of data being exposed.


However, India is not alone in its struggle. Other countries around the world are also grappling with the new onslaught of cyberattacks in the healthcare sector. Germany, for example, is trying to get ahead of the curve by enacting a new law for patient data protection and increased digitisation in health. In July, it already passed the draft bill and is expected to come into force before the end of the year.

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