Polish authorities have announced a massive leak of medical and personal data belonging to around 19 million citizens following a cyberattack on a company that provided software to the healthcare sector.
Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski described the incident as “one of the largest incidents” of cybersecurity ever recorded in Poland, a country with a population of around 37 million.
“There is nothing today to indicate that we are dealing with an attack from abroad, originating from Russia or any other country,” Gawkowski said.
According to preliminary investigations, the attackers are suspected of having acted for financial motives. The minister said the authorities would not pay any ransom and warned of strict criminal prosecution for those responsible.
The stolen data amounts to around two terabytes and mainly includes information on medical visits, prescriptions, and other documents used to monitor patients.
Polish authorities stressed that the nature and scope of the compromised data varies from one citizen to another. For this reason, the government has announced the creation of a mechanism that will allow citizens to check whether their data has been affected by the attack.
Around 12,000 medical institutions were using the services of the company targeted in the cyberattack, making the incident one of the largest data breaches in Poland’s healthcare sector.
