Nearly 40 million patient records from Siriraj Hospital have been seen by researchers being sold by vendors on an internet database-sharing site in what seems to be the most recent hack against Thailand’s health institutions.
There was no proof if the vendor who offered to sell the patient records had massive information of patients’ data. Still, according to reports, hospital staff should not take it lightly since the leaked data is also believed to include the information of high-profile patients.
A poster on the database-sharing forum said sample data was available and could be acquired through a Telegram account of the seller.
Data from Siriraj Hospital contained several essential pieces of information.
The investigators revealed that the leaked data contains names, addresses, phone numbers, gender, birthdays, and Thailand IDs. The poster of the vendor on the data-sharing site said that the price of the data is negotiable, and it would go only to a single customer.
According to a resident doctor of Siriraj, the stolen data is from their hospital. A concerning detail that the resident doctor gave is that healthcare institutions in their country had no cybersecurity providers or IT experts who could take care of threats or data problems.
Also, some department stores in Thailand that invested in cybersecurity have already been hacked before establishing their defence. That is why threat actors heavily target hospitals in their country since they do not prioritize cybersecurity services’ employment.
This latest leak from Siriraj Hospital follows an extensive series of cyberattacks over the previous years. Hopefully, health sectors from Thailand should consider asking the help of cybersecurity firms to fend off threats like data leaks.
Data leak victims from Siriraj Hospital may not be aware that their data has been used for illegal purposes or transactions. Also, if the hackers breach a system, they can steal all the data available within it, which they can sell to gain credibility through the underground landscape.
Thailand-based health institutions should start to bring in defence mechanisms to counter these attacks since they will be the ones to receive the consequences if they do not address this situation.
