SickKids takes down websites over ‘unusual activity’

SickKids took down two of its websites on Friday after detecting “potential unusual activity.”

In a statement, SickKids said the Specialty Food Shop and Infant and Early Mental Health Promotion (IEMHP) websites were temporarily unavailable starting Friday at 9 p.m.

SickKids says until further notice, the Specialty Food Shop will be taking orders by email and over the phone. Anyone who placed an order on Friday is asked to contact SickKids for their order status.

SickKids says this unusual activity does not seem to be related to a cybersecurity incident that happened earlier in December, adding that they continuously monitor for unexpected or unusual activity.

“When this activity was detected, we quickly acted to take both websites offline. Specialty Food Shop, IEMHP and SickKids’ Information Management Technology (IMT) teams are working to bring both sites back online as soon as possible,” SickKids’ statement read.

On Dec. 18, SickKids called a “Code Grey — system failure” after a cybersecurity incident impacted several of its network systems.

At the time, SickKids said there was no evidence that personal information or personal health information had been impacted. The incident appeared to affect a few internal clinical and corporate systems, in addition to some hospital phone lines and web pages.

As of Dec. 29, almost half of SickKids priority systems have been restored and are back online, including “many of the systems that would have contributed to diagnostic and/or treatment delays.”

The hospital said on Thursday around 50 per cent of its priority systems had been restored, including those that had contributed to diagnostic and treatment delays, but did not have a timeline for full restoration.

With files from The Canadian Press.

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