Melbourne's Eastern Health has been hit with “significant impacts” from a cyber attack last week. 

Eastern Health, which includes the Box Hill and Maroondah Hospitals, issued a statement last week saying it had experienced a ‘cyber incident’, which forced it to take some IT systems offline as a precaution.

“Patient safety has not been compromised,” the statement read.   

The incident saw less urgent (Category 2 and 3 Elective Procedures) postponed to a later date.  

Two days later, on Friday, it issued a second statement saying it was “still experiencing significant impacts related to the cyber incident”. 

Eastern Health’s official Twitter account on Monday said; “Many of our services remain off-line”.

Security provider Tenable recently issued a report that showed an increase in cyber attacks on healthcare organisations.

The analysts’ stats show there were 293 disclosed attacks in the 14 months to the end of February 2021.

“While the events of 2020 have shone a bright light on the importance of the healthcare industry, it's also revealed to cyber attackers that there's a lot to be gained by targeting the sector,” Tenable research engineer Rody Quinlan has told reporters.

“Personally identifiable information is valued at around US$150 per record, making the industry a lucrative target.”