Newfoundland and Labrador's System Cyberattack Compromises 2,500 SINs of Patients—Even 14-Year-Old Sensitive Data

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Newfoundland and Labrador's healthcare system was recently breached by a massive cyberattack. Now, various experts claimed that the security threat seems to be more severe than they expected.

Newfoundland and Labrador's System Cyberattack Compromises 2,500 SINs of Patients—Even 14-Year-Old Sensitive Data
Participants work at their laptops at the annual Chaos Computer Club (CCC) computer hackers' congress, called 29C3, on December 28, 2012 in Hamburg, Germany. The 29th Chaos Communication Congress (29C3) attracts hundreds of participants worldwide annually to engage in workshops and lectures discussing the role of technology in society and its future. Photo by Patrick Lux/Getty Images

As of the moment, security researchers said that the October system breach might have leaked 2,500 SINs (Social Insurance Numbers) of patients.

Meanwhile, experts are criticizing the N.L. government since they still haven't released essential details about the attack, even though it is now becoming more serious.

"Mitigation plans are being developed as we speak to prevent this from happening again. We actually don't see that there was ever a need for social insurance numbers to be collected that way," said David Diamond, the CEO and President of Eastern Health.

Newfoundland and Labrador's Cyberattack

According to CBC CA's latest report, around 2,514 patients were affected by the latest cyberattack. However, security experts discovered that some patients around the Central Health and Labrador-Grenfell Health regions were also included.

Australia Critical Infrastructure Is Severely Vulnerable to Cyberattacks: Microsoft Report
An engineer from the Israeli company "Commun.it" uses his expertise in social media commercial analysis to identify networks of fake users during at the group's office in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv on January 23, 2019. - A coalition of Israeli diplomats, programmers and hackers have joined forces to stave off threats -- including from hostile states -- by identifying networks on social media and getting them removed. Photo credit should read JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images

Aside from their social insurance numbers, researchers also confirmed that other personal health details, such as their COVID-19, blood, and other laboratory tests were also compromised.

However, the actual results were not compromised, as claimed by David Diamond. If you want to see more details, you can view this link.

Protecting Your SINs

The government of Canada's official website provided some tips on how you can protect your SINs. These include the following:

  • Never reply to emails that ask for personal information like your SIN
  • Never use your SIN as a piece of identification
  • If you have a SIN card, do not carry it in your wallet or purse-store it in a safe place
  • Provide your SIN over the phone only if you make the call and you know it is legally required

These are just some of the habits you need to practice to do your part when it comes to securing your SINs.

In other news, Poland's investigation would specifically look into Apple's App Tracking Transparency feature. On the other hand, Kryptowire's collaboration with Orange is expected to solve more mobile device vulnerabilities.

For more news updates about security breaches, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

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Written by: Griffin Davis

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Tags:Sensitive Data
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