SingHealth
SingHealth is Singapore's largest group of healthcare institutions. The group was formed in 2000 and consists of four public hospitals across the island, five national specialty centres and a network of nine polyclinics. The group operates Singapore General Hospital, Changi General Hospital, KK Women's and Children's Hospital and Sengkang Health. The group also runs five national specialty centres which include National Cancer Centre Singapore, National Heart Centre Singapore, Singapore National Eye Centre, National Dental Centre Singapore and the National Neuroscience Institute.
On 3 November 2009, Singapore General Hospital and SingHealth Group launched the inaugural issue of Singapore Health – a newspaper reporting on health-related matters affecting Singaporeans.[1]
On 20 January 2017, SingHealth announced it will be merging with Eastern Health Alliance, essentially bringing back Changi General Hospital into the SingHealth cluster.
Data breach incident
Between 27 June and 4 July 2018, the personal particulars of 1.5 million SingHealth patients, and records of outpatient dispensed medicines for 160,000 of those patients, were stolen in a cyberattack. The names, NRIC numbers, addresses, dates of birth and race and gender information of patients who visited specialist outpatient clinics and polyclinics between 1 May 2015 and 4 July 2018 were maliciously accessed and copied. Information relating to patient diagnosis, test results and doctors' notes were unaffected.[2] Information on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was specifically targeted.[3]
Discovery and investigation
The database administrators for the Integrated Health Information Systems (IHIS), the public healthcare IT provider, detected unusual activity on one of SingHealth’s IT databases on 4 July, and implemented precautions against further intrusions. Network traffic monitoring was enhanced; additional malicious activity was detected after 4 July, but did not result in the theft of any data.[4] Having ascertained that a cyberattack occurred, administrators notified the ministries and involved the Cyber Security Agency (CSA) on 10 July to carry out forensic investigations. The agency determined that perpetrators gained privileged access to the IT network by compromising a front-end workstation, and obtained login credentials to assess the database, while hiding their digital footprints.[4] News of the attack was made public in a statement released by the Ministry of Communications and Information and Ministry of Health on 20 July.[3] Text messages were subsequently sent to patients whose data was affected. [4]
In Parliament, S. Iswaran, Minister for Communications and Information, attributed the attack to sophisticated state-linked actors who wrote customized malware to circumvent SingHealth's antivirus and security tools. Iswaran did not name any state, in the interest of national security.[5]
Aftermath
Following the cyberattack, Internet access was temporarily removed from all public healthcare IT terminals with access to the healthcare network, and additional system monitoring and controls were implemented.[6]
See also
References
- ^ https://www.sgh.com.sg/about-us/newsroom/news-release/2009/Pages/SGH-and-SingHealth-launch-Singapore%E2%80%99s-first-bilingual-health-newspaper,-Singapore-Health-20091103.aspx
- ^ "Personal info of 1.5m SingHealth patients, including PM Lee, stolen in Singapore's worst cyber attack".
- ^ a b Kwang, Kevin (2018-07-20). "Singapore health system hit by 'most serious breach of personal data' in cyberattack; PM Lee's data targeted". Channel NewsAsia.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|dead-url=(help) - ^ a b c "Hackers stole data of PM Lee and 1.5 million patients in 'major cyberattack' on SingHealth". TODAYonline. 20 July 2018.
- ^ "Singapore Minister: Major Cyberattack May Be State-Linked". The Associated Press. 2018-08-06. Retrieved 2018-08-16.
- ^ "SingHealth cyberattack: Internet surfing delinked at all public healthcare clusters". Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved 2018-08-16.
External links
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