The New South Wales Ministry of Health (NSW Health) has admitted that it was impacted by the global Accellion cyber attack earlier this year and is notifying patients whose data may have been accessed as a result.
It warned that 'identity information' and 'health-related personal information' were both accessed in the attack, although medical records in public hospitals were not affected and the software involved is no longer in use by the organisation.
NSW Health added that it has been working with NSW Police and Cyber Security NSW and has found no evidence any of the information has been misused.
"The privacy of individuals is of the utmost importance to NSW Health, and we are making impacted people aware of the attack so that they can take appropriate precautions and access our support services," said an NSW Health spokesperson.
A Cyber Incident helpline has been set up to provide information and support to those that the organisation is contacting.
Furthermore, Strike Force Martine, set up by NSW Police and Cyber Security NSW, has been investigating the impact on NSW Government agencies that were caught up in the cyber attack in January on the US-based software provider.
IT Pro has asked NSW Health how many people were affected in this data breach.
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Around 100 organisations across the globe were affected by the Accellion hack, including global corporations, financial institutions, government departments, hospitals, and universities. Within this group, the company said that fewer than 25 appeared to have suffered significant data theft.
In February, hackers exploited several zero-day flaws in a legacy IT product developed by Accellion to attack several dozen groups, including Canadian airline manufacturer Bombardier. A portion of the organisation's data was compromised as an unauthorised attacker exploited vulnerabilities in Accellion's File Transfer Application (FTA) product. This data included confidential data relating to around 130 employees in Costa Rica, as well as customers and suppliers.
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