Health officials in Newfoundland and Labrador say they’ve uncovered more data thefts and privacy breaches resulting from a cyberattack discovered last October against the province’s health-care networks.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. - Officials in Newfoundland and Labrador said Wednesday they have uncovered more data thefts stemming from a cyberattack last October against the province’s health-care networks, and the latest breach could involve “thousands” of people.
“As you can imagine, with 200,000 files there are literally millions of data points,” said Diamond, president of the Eastern Regional Health Authority. “There’s a lot of manual work involved before we can put a final number, but we expect the number could be large; it could be thousands of individuals between staff and patients.”
Health officials refuse to divulge what kind of attack hit the health-care system, though cybersecurity experts have said it has all the features of a ransomware attack, in which hackers demand payment in exchange for stolen data or a key to decrypt compromised networks.