Privacy office to probe hack at ehealth

Saskatchewan’s information and privacy commissioner says his office will investigate the ransomware attack against ehealth Saskatchewan that froze administrative operations earlier this month.

During a phone interview on Thursday, Ronald Kruzeniski said his office has already had phone conversations with ehealth.

The Crown corporation has already said no personal private health information was compromised in the attack. Kruzeniski said the investigation will attempt to learn how the attack happened and determine if indeed no personal information was leaked.

“I hope our investigation just confirms that. That is the best news for citizens of the province. On the other hand ... our job is, in fact, to do an investigation and confirm that no breach has occurred, or a breach has occurred,” said Kruzeniski.

The investigation will also focus on determining if ehealth could have done anything to prevent the breach, and how it could reduce the risk of similar breaches from happening in the future.

Kruzeniski said the first step in the process will be to ask ehealth for its own investigative report on the attack. The investigation may take some time, as the information and privacy office currently has a backlog of cases.

The province’s deputy provincial auditor Tara Clemett said the attack will also be covered in the auditor’s second annual review.

I hope our investigation just confirms (there was no breach). That is the best news for citizens. RONALD KRUZENISKI, Sask. privacy commissioner

RANSOMWARE VIRUS CONTAINED: EHEALTH

ehealth said in a statement on Thursday that staff have isolated the virus that attacked some of its servers on Jan. 5.

Once the attack happened, some staff were unable to access certain files, and instead got a message demanding payment through Bitcoin to regain access.

ehealth is now working with

Microsoft to restore applications the organization had shut down as a precaution. The organization said it has continued to find no signs of any confidential information being compromised.

CANCER TREATMENTS DELAYED DUE TO ATTACK

The Saskatchewan Cancer Agency (SCA) said 31 patients in Regina and Saskatoon had their radiation therapy appointments delayed by one day as a result of the SCA disconnecting itself from ehealth as a precautionary measure.

The SCA temporarily disconnected itself from the Crown on Jan. 6, and reconnected on Jan. 14. The SCA said contingency plans were in place to deliver patient care over that time period, but the action did still result in a delay for some patients.

The delay affected patients at both the Saskatoon Cancer Centre and the Allan Blair Cancer Centre in Regina.

Approximately 100 to 120 patients receive treatment each day at the centres’ chemotherapy suites. Six appointments over two days had to be deferred.

“Each patient was provided with a personal explanation and apology for the delay and inconvenience,” said the SCA in a statement.