Singapore personal data hack hits 1.5m, including PM Lee
singapore — A major cyberattack on Singapore’s government health database stole the personal information of about 1.5 million people, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the government said on Friday.
The attack, which the government called “the most serious breach of personal data” that the country has experienced, comes as the highly wired and digitalised state has made cyber security a top priority for the Asean bloc and for itself. Singapore is this year’s chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) group.
“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,” a government statement said.
“It was not the work of casual hackers or criminal gangs,” the joint statement by the Health Ministry and the Ministry of Communications and Information said.
About 1.5 million patients who visited clinics between May 2015 and July 4 this year have had their non-medical personal particulars illegally accessed and copied, the statement said.
“The attackers specifically and repeatedly targeted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s personal particulars and information on his outpatient dispensed medicines,” it said.
A Committee of Inquiry will be established and immediate action will be taken to strengthen government systems against cyber attacks, the Ministry of Communications said in a separate statement. It did not provide details about what entity or individuals may have been behind the attack.
Officials said the patients’ information was not amended or deleted. And the hackers did not have access to other records, such as diagnosis documents, test results or doctors’ notes, the statement said.
Lee, who has been Singapore’s prime minister since 2004, has been treated for intermediate grade malignant lymphoma and prostate cancer. He underwent surgery to remove his prostate gland in 2015 and was subsequently given the all-clear by doctors.
“I don’t know what the attackers were hoping to find. Perhaps they were hunting for some dark state secret, or at least something to embarrass me. If so, they would have been disappointed,” Lee said in a Facebook post on Friday. “My medication data is not something I would ordinarily tell people about, but there is nothing alarming in it,” he said. —
The attackers specifically targeted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s personal particulars and information on his outpatient dispensed medicines Ministries of Health and Communications and Information