An information breach in Singapore led to a quarter of the nation’s population having their info taken.
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Hackers took the individual information of 1.5 million individuals in Singapore by burglarizing a federal government health database, authorities stated Friday.
The information, taken in between June 27 and July 4, consisted of names and addresses of those who had actually checked out health centers given that May 2015, however not complete medical records. However, information about medications were taken from about 160,000 individuals, according to a federal government declaration.
“The records were not tampered with, ie no records were amended or deleted. No other patient records, such as diagnosis, test results or doctors’ notes, were breached,” Singapore’s Ministry of Health stated in the declaration. “We have not found evidence of a similar breach in the other public healthcare IT systems.”
It was a “deliberate, targeted and well-planned cyberattack. It was not the work of casual hackers or criminal gangs,” the federal government stated.
The hackers “specifically and repeatedly targeted” information coming from Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, whom the BBC notes has actually made it through 2 fights with cancer.
In 2016, Singapore took procedures to prevent attacks like this by cutting off web gain access to on federal government computer systems. However, the affected computer systems at the Ministry of Health still had gain access to.
Starting Friday, the federal government will get in touch with all clients who checked out the centers from May 1, 2015, to July 4, 2018, to notify them of the breach.
