Several health services in the Midland region were attacked by hackers last week.
The Pinnacle Midlands Health Network reported a breach on September 28, affecting some of its IT services in the Pinnacle group’s regional offices and the general operations of the Health Care Company. Health Main throughout Taranaki, Rotorua, Taupō-Tūrangi, Thames-Coromandel and Waikato.
In a statement on Tuesday, the network, which serves approximately 450,000 patients in 87 practice facilities, said affected IT was “immediately brought offline and under control.”
However, the malicious actors accessed sensitive information from the system, “which may include commercial and personal details.”
“At this time, we cannot confirm what specific data or information may have been accessed, but we do,” said Justin Butcher, CEO of Pinnacle Inc., the network’s parent company. are working on a process to better understand that.”
He added that knowing what data was accessed “will take a long time.”
Pinnacle says it doesn’t store information like GP notes, but it does maintain personal information, such as names, addresses and National Health Index numbers.
Meanwhile, Butcher said it has put in place contingency plans and conducted an in-depth investigation along with the police, Te Whatu Ora and other relevant government agencies. It also informed the Privacy Commissioner about the incident.
Pinnacle has also joined IDCARE, the national identity and cyber support community service, which provides free expert assistance to individuals deemed to be at high risk due to their information being exposed. The service has advised current and former Pinnacle patients to “remain vigilant” about the risk of fraud.
Pinnacle advises that while affected methods are still active, patients may experience delays in exposure to some practices.
“We know that people will really care about this, and we want to assure the public that Pinnacle takes our role as custodians of people’s information seriously and security is important.” top priority for us,” Butcher reassured the patient.
In a separate statement, Te Whatu Ora asserted that the Pinnacle cyber attack was “no indication of a threat to Te Whatu Ora’s networks” because its systems are separate from Pinnacle’s.
“Although Pinnacle is a private organization, Te Whatu Ora is assisting the organization in its investigations and supporting its efforts to comply with relevant cybersecurity best practices and policies.” , it said.
TREND TO BIGGER WOMAN
The cybersecurity of healthcare services in the Midland area appears to remain vulnerable even after a year since its last hack. On May 18 of last year, the old Waikato County Health Department was complete shutdown of IT systems following a ransomware attack. Hackers claim to have leaked sensitive patient information from DHB on the dark web.
