Hackers claim that they have copied and deleted 50TB worth of COVID-19 vaccination data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health's internal systems. With that, websites under the Ministry of Health of Brazil have suffered a massive ransomware attack resulting in the unavailability of COVID-19 vaccination data for millions of citizens.
Hackers Attack the Ministry of Health with Ransomware
According to the story by ZDNet, following the attack that took place just recently, all of MoH's official websites, which include ConecteSUS, became unavailable for access. To explain how important the data is, ConecteSUS is responsible for tracking the trajectory of citizens within the public healthcare system.
The data includes the COVID-19 digital vaccine certificates made available on the ConecteSUS app. As per a message left by the Lapsus$ Group, 50TB worth of data was stolen from the MoH's system and then deleted.
Lapsus$ Group Left Messages for Its Victims
The group is claiming responsibility for the attack leaving a message to contact them should they want the data returned along with contact details for the authors responsible for the attack. With that, early in the morning, the images that the hackers left were removed, but the website remains unavailable.
The incident occurred following a previous attack back in September on the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency, otherwise known as Anvisa. The attack was directly focused on the healthcare declaration for travelers, compulsory for individuals entering Brazil through airports.
Other Large-Scale Hacker Attacks
The previous attack took place just shortly after canceling the World Cup qualifier match between Brazil and Argentina. The game was interrupted by Anvisa due to four Argentinian players being accused of breaking COVID-19 travel protocols.
Quite similarly, the latest issue that the Ministry of Health is facing occurs amid the increasing pressure on the Brazilian government to demand vaccination certificates for COVID-19 from international travelers going to Brazil in response to the rising Omicron variant.
Most Recent Healthcare Hacks
Another recent attack towards the health system was made towards Newfoundland's Health Care System, as The New York Times reported. The province only revealed little about a cyberattack that delayed or canceled specific medical procedures and even leaked people's personal information.
The province revealed that the attack even got worse with the provincial justice minister John Hogan saying that employee information from three local health authorities had been stolen. Two days prior to Hogan's statement, officials stated that personal information from patients and health workers, some of them being related to health, had been "accessed" amidst the attack.
As months passed, Newfoundland and Labrador residents have had to put up with either canceled or delayed medical procedures and appointments.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian B.
