The University Hospital in Düsseldorf was subjected to a cyber attack, which caused disruptions in the hospital's IT system.

The faulty IT system caused the hospital to lose contact with its ambulances, which led to a woman in need of immediate care being taken to a hospital that was an hour's drive away.

Shortly after arriving at the hospital, she died.

The North Rhine-Westphalia state's Minister of Justice states that 30 of the hospital's servers were encrypted last week and that a notice had been issued demanding a ransom on one of the servers.

The hackers unidentified

The Düsseldorf police then contacted the perpetrators and said that the cyber attack had put patients in danger.

The hackers then provided the police with a digital key to decrypt the servers, but have since been unreachable.

The perpetrators are now, among other things, suspected of killing the deceased woman, and if they were convicted, it would be a unique sentence.

- This is the first case where you actually want to test whether the attackers are legally guilty of the crime of manslaughter.

It is an interesting question - if you can kill someone through a cyber attack, says Fredrik Blix, doctor of cyber security at Stockholm University.

Cyber ​​attacks are becoming more common

Fredrik Blix says that it is very possible that the perpetrators in the case in Düsseldorf will be convicted of murder - if they succeed in identifying them.

- If you as an attacker enter a hospital servers and take information systems hostage, then you have to reckon with the fact that it can have consequences for life and health.

Then they have acted with some form of intent, so I think there is a good chance that they will be convicted.

Several similar cyber attacks on hospitals have occurred in recent years and according to Fredrik Blix, it is a growing problem throughout the world, including in Sweden.

He thinks this is because it is relatively easy to get away with, while it is not uncommon for ransoms to actually be paid out.

- It is a lucrative industry if you want to engage in shady business.

I think it will become more common and I think it would be appropriate for a law banning the payment of ransoms.