Source: Radio New Zealand
123RF
Patients are anxious to know whether they’re affected by the ManageMyHealth hack – and there’s a pressing need for the company to tell people if their data’s been stolen, GP owners say.
The deadline is now thought to have passed for a $US60,000 ransom for hundreds of thousands of files taken from the online health portal, affecting more than 120,000 patients.
The hackers, known online as ‘Kazu’ have not leaked any further data after the deadline for the ransom had passed.
General Practice Owners’ Association chairperson Angus Chambers told Morning Report GPs don’t know who’s affected, or what information’s been taken.
General Practice Owners’ Association chairperson Angus Chambers. Supplied
“There’s a lot of patients who are worried that their privacy’s been breached, and they still don’t know, and there’s people who have had their privacy breached, and they don’t know either,” he said.
“There’s a lot of anxiety, and it’s actually creating a lot of work for GPs, because there’s a lot of queries, a lot of explanations, so we feel that we need to get that anxiety put to bed.”
That was ManageMyHealth’s job, he said.
“GPs are involved to a degree, but … it looks like it’s their responsibility, their fault, we feel it’s on them to be doing informing.”
Chambers said practices must be prudent about cyber security and protecting their patients, but it was not as simple as switching platforms.
In many practices, ManageMyHealth was closely connected with practice management software, and changing that was a massive job, he said.
ManageMyHealth said late on Monday that the ransom demand was a matter for police, and it would not be making any comment about a ransom while an investigation was ongoing.
The platform apologised for pain and anxiety caused to health providers and patients, and acknowledged it could have communicated better.
“However, our priority was to secure patient data and work on the accuracy of all information before providing it to practices and patients.”
It said it will publish daily updates with all the information it can share.
Health Minister Simeon Brown has announced an urgent review into the breach.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
