sign in sign up
<<
Home , Dapo Akande, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Juan Manuel Santos, Lakhdar Brahimi

A Call to All Governments: Work Together Now to Stop Cyberattacks on the Healthcare Sector

We call on the world’s governments to take immediate around the world, medical care is more important and decisive action to stop all cyberattacks on hospitals, than ever. This will not be the last health crisis. For healthcare and medical research facilities, as well as now and for the future, governments should assert on medical personnel and international public health in unequivocal terms: cyber operations against organizations. To this end, governments should work healthcare facilities are unlawful and unacceptable. together, including at the , to reaffirm and recommit to international rules that prohibit We don’t tolerate attacks on health infrastructure in such actions. the physical world, and we must not tolerate such attacks in cyberspace — whether in time of peace or in time of Over the past weeks, we have witnessed attacks that conflict. We stand with the International Committee of have targeted medical facilities and organizations the Red Cross in support of its call to protect medical on the frontlines of the response to the COVID-19 services or medical facilities against cyberattacks of any pandemic. These actions have endangered human lives kind. We call on governments to work together, and to join by impairing the ability of these critical institutions to forces with civil society and the private sector, to ensure function, slowing down the distribution of essential that medical facilities are respected and protected, and supplies and information, and disrupting the delivery to hold perpetrators accountable. Above all, governments of care to patients. With hundreds of thousands should take action and stop cyberattacks on hospitals and of people already perished and millions infected medical facilities. The time to act is now.

Dapo Akande Francesco Rocca Professor of Public International Law, Former President, President, International Federation of ( Laureate) Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Madeleine Albright Eugene Kaspersky Julio María Sanguinetti Former Secretary of State, United States Chief Executive Officer, Kaspersky Former President, Uruguay

José María Álvarez-Pallete López Khoo Boon Hui Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Former President, INTERPOL Former President, Telefónica (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) Larry Kramer Ban Ki-moon President, William and Flora Samir Saran Former Secretary General, United Nations Hewlett Foundation President, Observer Research Foundation

Lakhdar Brahimi Ricardo Lagos Marietje Schaake Former Foreign Minister, Former President, Chile Former Member of the European Parliament, Netherlands John Bruton Doris Leuthard Former Taoiseach, Ireland Former President, Swiss Confederation Michael Schmitt Fernando Henrique Cardoso Adrian Lovett Professor of International Law, Former President, Brazil President and Chief Executive Officer, University of Reading World Wide Web Foundation Margaret Chan Wendy Sherman Former Director-General, Susana Malcorra Former Under Secretary of State World Health Organization Former Foreign Minister, Argentina for Political Affairs, United States Eva Chen Peter Maurer Brad Smith Chief Executive Officer, Trend Micro President, International President, Microsoft Stéphane Duguin Committee of the Red Cross Chief Executive Officer, CyberPeace Institute Helle Thorning Schmidt Daniel Mitov Former Prime Minister, Mohamed ElBaradei Former Foreign Minister, Bulgaria Former Director General, Desmund Tutu International Atomic Energy Agency Eduardo Montealegre Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) Former Foreign Minister, Nicaragua (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate)

Marty Natalegawa Beatrice Fihn Danilo Türk Former Foreign Minister, Executive Director, International Campaign Former President, to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Nandan Nilekani (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) Lech Wałęsa Non-Executive Chairman of the Board, Infosys Former President, Poland (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) Former President, Soviet Union Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) Former Finance Minister, Sir Graham Watson Former Member of the European Maia Panjikidze Parliament, Former Director-General, Former Foreign Minister, Georgia World Health Organization Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein Harold F. Wolf, III Zhixiong Huang Former High Commissioner for Chief Executive Officer, Professor of International Law, Human Rights, United Nations Healthcare Information and Wuhan University Management Systems Society Sir Richard J. Roberts Igor Ivanov Chief Scientific Officer, New England Biolabs Former Foreign Minister, Russia (Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine) Former President,

For more information, contact [email protected]