Dutch Public Health Institute RIVM shuts website following cyberattack

The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) took its website offline on Tuesday around 11:15 a.m. due to an external hack. The website is still inaccessible. “We closed the site as a precaution and are now working to fix the security gaps,” a spokesperson said. The website is currently back online.

The RIVM is a Dutch government agency responsible for public health, environmental protection, and disease control. It conducts research, provides policy advice, and monitors health and environmental risks in the Netherlands. Its headquarters are located in Bilthoven, in the province of Utrecht.

The spokesperson explained that the “security gap” referred to a vulnerability in a web form, which may have been due to outdated plugins on the RIVM site. Hackers used this weakness to post content on the website that clearly didn’t belong there. “I saw an English article about diabetes and a humorous YouTube video about a dog. It seemed completely random to me,” the spokesperson said.

According to the spokesperson, the RIVM is not in contact with the hackers. “This is not ransomware or another targeted attack. Incidents like this happen fairly often.”

The website was back online near the end of the afternoon. It is largely accessible, though web forms for submitting information are still not fully operational. The institute has assured that this issue will be resolved as quickly as possible.