Personal health data theft scary

THE Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) is distressed by the recent news that a group of hackers had hacked into the systems of both government and private hospitals and stolen the personal health data of tens of thousands of individuals – data which is then sold to pharmaceutical companies through information selling syndicates.

The implications of this cyber theft is terrifying because our Government and various agencies are trying to get everything (banking transactions, filling forms, making complaints, etc.) to go “online”, as part of our green initiative. However, there is a big chance we don’t really have the security to back this move as made obvious by this incident.