HACKERS STEAL HEALTH RECORDS OF 1.5 MILLION PEOPLE IN SINGAPORE
Govt database breached in deliberate attack
SINGAPORE: Hackers have infiltrated Singapore’s government health database in the country’s worst breach of personal data, stealing records on 1.5 million patients including the prime minister’s own personal drug prescriptions, the government said on Friday.
Government officials did not say who might have been behind the attack, but a joint statement by the health and communications ministries suggested a high degree of sophistication.
“Investigations by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) and the Integrated Health Information System (IHiS) confirmed that this was a deliberate, targeted and well-planned cyberattack,” the statement said. “It was not the work of casual hackers or criminal gangs.”
The hackers stole personal details and prescription records of patients who visited Singapore’s outpatient clinics betweem May 1, 2015 and July 4 of this year, the statement said. “The attackers specifically and repeatedly targeted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s personal particulars and information on his outpatient dispensed medicines.”
Prime Minister Lee said in a Facebook post that he did not know what information the attackers were hoping to find.
“My medication data is not something I would ordinarily tell people about, but there is nothing alarming in it,” he said.
Major cyber attacks have been rare in Singapore, which has invested heavily in cyber security over the past decade. The attack comes as the highly wired and digitalised state has made cyber security a top priority.