Ireland’s health authority said Friday it had shut down its computer systems after experiencing a “significant ransomware attack”.

The Health Service Executive said on Twitter, “We have taken the precaution of shutting down all our IT systems in order to protect them from this attack and to allow us (to) fully assess the situation with our own security partners,”

“We apologise for inconvenience caused to patients and to the public and will give further information as it becomes available,” it added, stressing Ireland’s coronavirus vaccination programme was unaffected and “going ahead as planned”.

Another ransomware attack last Friday forced the shutdown of the United States’ largest fuel pipeline network, leading to some panic buying at gasoline stations along the east coast.

Moscow has rejected US accusations that a Russia-based group was behind the cyber attack.

HSE chief executive Paul Reid told state broadcaster RTE the attack was “quite a significant one”, and the body was working with its major IT security providers.

“We are at the very early stages of fully understanding the threat,” he said, adding it was trying to “contain” the issue.

The Rotunda maternity hospital in Dublin said all outpatient visits were cancelled other than for women who were at least 36 weeks pregnant “due to a serious IT issue”.

Bouncing back after three down sessions, Wall Street stocks saw solid gains on Thursday in trading marked by bargain hunting as well as optimism after US officials lifted an indoor mask mandate.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed mask requirements for people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, a watershed moment in the pandemic that comes more than a year after the federal government recommended people cover their faces in public.

“If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said.

All three major US indices won solid gains following a mixed session in Europe and broad losses in Asia.

The CDC action “provided renewed steam for rebound rally that was losing its luster,” said Briefing.com, alluding to a midday pullback in equities that preceded the mask announcement.

The Dow finished up 1.3 percent at 34,021.45. The blue-chip index is still down 2.2 percent for the week after losing ground the last three days.

Earlier, the Labor Department reported 473,000 new applications for jobless benefits made in the week ended May 8, fewer than expected and 34,000 less than the previous week’s upwardly revised level.

But wholesale price inflation in the United States surged 6.2 percent in April compared to the same month in 2020, the highest on record.

In other markets, bitcoin prices tanked, falling around 10 percent to under $50,000 following Tesla’s announcement that it will halt transactions in the cryptocurrency because of environmental concerns.

“We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel,” Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said in a tweet.

“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.”

Oil prices also pulled back as the Colonial Pipeline resumed fuel deliveries after shutting down its network following a ransomware attack on its computer systems late Friday.

Analysts said oil prices were pressured by fears the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates more quickly than expected due to inflation.

The U.S Labour Department said Thursday, Wholesale price inflation in the United States surged 6.2 percent in April compared to the same month in 2020, the highest on record.

The data follow Wednesday’s report showing a 4.2 percent spike in consumer prices over the past year, and adds pressure on President Joe Biden’s efforts to help the world’s largest economy bounce back from the pandemic without causing prices to increase.

Analysts say the inflation seen in recent data reflects the rebound from price collapses seen in the early weeks of the pandemic, as well as the economy’s uneven reopening.

The annual increase in the Producer Price Index (PPI) is the highest since the current form of the index was launched in November 2010, and compares to a 1.5 percent drop reported in April 2020.

Excluding volatile food and energy products, PPI rose 4.2 percent over the latest 12 months, also the largest on record dating back to August 2014. A year ago, it dipped 0.1 percent.

Mahir Rasheed of Oxford Economics noted that supply chain bottlenecks are contributing to rising inflation, but the effect should not last.

“We expect upward price pressures to persist in the near term before supply constraints are resolved and base effects fade,” Rasheed said, agreeing with the Federal Reserve’s view that “much of the acceleration in inflation will be transitory… (and) this isn’t the start of an upward inflationary spiral.”

PPI rose 0.6 percent compared to March, double the consensus forecast, the report said, noting that a third of the increase was from services. A year earlier, the monthly index plunged 1.1 percent.

And while energy prices have been moving higher, the report said wholesale gasoline prices actually fell 3.4 percent in the month.