Personal data of 16 million patients stolen

PUBLIC Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul admitted that the personal data of 16 million patients had been stolen from the ministry’s database.

He said this after a post on social media on Monday saying the stolen data, including patients’ addresses, identification codes, mobile numbers, date of birth, hospital names, doctors’ information and hospital systems’ passwords, was being sold on Raidforums.com.

The post also said Raidforums.com had previously successfully hacked into large e-commerce websites.

Anutin said he had instructed officials to investigate the case, adding that the hack had initially taken place in Phetchabun province.

He said revealing confidential information was a crime and a violation of the Computer Crime Act and Section 7 of the National Health Act.“Once the hacker is found, we will take legal action till the end because this has caused damage to the ministry and patients,” he said. — The Nation/ANN