Symbolic imagePoland says medical data of 19 million people stolen in cyberattack
A cyberattack on a Polish medical software provider has exposed personal and health data on nearly 19 million people. Polish authorities disclosed the breach on Wednesday.
Digitisation minister Krzysztof Gawkowski announced the attack on Wednesday, 12 August, calling it one of the biggest cybersecurity incidents ever recorded in the country of 37 million inhabitants. The attackers took around two terabytes of material from the medical software provider, including information on consultations, prescriptions and other documents used in patient care. Gawkowski said nothing so far points to an attack coming from Russia or any other state, and that early findings favour cybercriminals acting for financial gain. He ruled out paying any ransom and promised to pursue those responsible "relentlessly".
Checking who is affected
About 12,000 medical facilities used the services of the targeted company. Gawkowski said the nature and scale of the compromised data differ from person to person, and announced a service allowing citizens to check whether their own records were stolen.