Melbourne Hospital Data Breach
The health sector, just like other sectors, has been at the forefront in implementing modern technologies and has been a victim of data breaches as well. Health organisations have adopted systems that integrate patients’ and employees’ information for easy access and retrieval. Late February 2019, a Melbourne hospital became a victim of data breach after the data of 15,000 patients was accessed by unauthorised personnel (Kenna, 2019). The servers of the system were completely crippled, and the Melbourne Heart Group was unable to access the records. Just like Toyota, the Hospital later assured the public that the patient records were not compromised.The case of Melbourne exhibits so many similarities with that of Toyota. The two data breaches were both caused by a ransomware attack. However, the hospital’s case is clearer as it was stated that it resulted from a click of a malicious link (Kenna, 2019). The click implies that the cause was as a result of human error. The error sheds light on the need for organisations to invest more in training employees as a strategy to avoid cyber-attacks (Anwar et al., 2018, p. 10). Following the data breach, it also emerged that the group was using a probably outdared firewall. The data breach would have been preventable if the firewall had been kept up-to-date.
References
Kenna, S., 2019. A Major Melbourne Hospital and Car Manufacturer Toyota have had their Systems Infiltrated by Hackers.. https://10daily.com.au/news/crime/a190220gad/cyber-ransom-attacks-on-the-rise-as–toyota-and-Melbourne-hospital-become-latest-victims-20190221 [Accessed 8 August 2019].