N.L. justice minister confirms health-care employee info stolen in cyberattack
CBC
Newfoundland and Labrador Justice Minister John Hogan has confirmed that regional health authority employee information was stolen in the cyberattack that has disrupted the province's health-care system for nearly two weeks.
Earlier this week, officials announced that patient and employee information had been accessed in Eastern Health, Central Health and Labrador-Grenfell Health, but not in Western Health.
Now, Hogan said officials have confirmed that employee data in Eastern Health, Central Health and Labrador-Grenfell Health has not only been accessed, but also stolen.
"As the investigation has continued throughout Thursday and even into today, we received confirmation from our cyber experts and their investigative team certain data has been taken from the regional health authorities," Hogan said in an interview with CBC News on Friday.
He said the investigation has not yet confirmed whether patient information was also stolen, but it is possible.
Hogan said the government waited until Friday to say information had been stolen because it could not be confirmed earlier.
"We don't ever at any stage of this investigation and our public disclosure want to speculate. Speculation can lead to unintended consequences in this very, very serious situation with regards to the bad actor in this cyberattack," said Hogan.
Officials believe Eastern Health employee data going back 14 years, Central Health employee data going back 13 years and Labrador-Grenfell Health employee data going back nine years were taken during the breach.
The stolen information includes names, addresses, contact information and social insurance numbers. On Wednesday, Health Minister John Haggie said there is no evidence that banking information was stolen.
The province will be providing free credit monitoring services to affected individuals.
On Friday, Hogan said although the government has been able to confirm that data was indeed stolen, it doesn't yet have any evidence indicating that it has been misused. He said the investigative team is monitoring for potential misuse of the stolen data.
The news comes after officials backtracked on their initial statement that the data had been stolen, saying instead on Wednesday that patient and employee information had merely been "accessed."
"Access is different than exfiltration," said Hogan during a media briefing Wednesday.
Additionally, during a technical briefing on Tuesday, an official said the accessed data was unencrypted. On Wednesday, Haggie appeared to walk that statement back, saying he could not confirm whether the data had been encrypted.
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