More than 1.5 million people in Singapore have been hit by a data hack where the hackers broke into the Singapore government’s health database in order to steal the personal information of the general public. As per the Singapore government’s statement, the hack was “deliberate, targeted and well-planned”. The data consists of people who visited clinics and hospitals across the country between 1st May 2015 and 4th July of this year.
The stolen data included information like names, addresses and, out of the 1.5 million people who were hit by the data hack, medicinal dispensation information of about 160,000 patients was stolen as well. The statement released by the Ministry of Health mentions that the other medical records of the affected people are safe and that none of the record information had been compromised.
"The records were not tampered with, i.e. no records were amended or deleted. No other patient records, such as diagnosis, test results or doctors' notes, were breached. We have not found evidence of a similar breach in the other public healthcare IT systems."
Singapore has been an active target of cyber attacks and the government recognizes the threat and has warned citizens about these attacks in the past as well. The government also took extra measures like “air-gapping” to prevent such attacks in many of its departments.
Another similar attack took place last year where the hackers were able to gather basic military information on conscripts.
Source: Ministry of Health, SG via BBC
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