The Tsurugi Municipal Handa Hospital is a modestly sized, dreary pile in a somnolent corner of Shikoku island. It looks on to a river, backs on to a hill and serves an ageing local population last clocked at 8,048.
The perfect place, therefore, for the world’s most ruthless cyber-gangs to expand their assault on everyday life, shift the globalised ransomware war front deep into Asia and confront a whole new victim-scape with one of the more excruciating debates of modern business.
At this point the Handa hospital is just about back to normal, barring apologies and incident reports. But for two months at the end of last year, it was paralysed — unable to accept new patients and perform other basic functions after a ransomware attack targeting the extortionists’ sweet spot of medical records.