Cyber Attack Partially Paralyzes Brazilian Healthcare System

Parts of the Brazilian health system have been paralyzed by hackers. According to media reports, the vaccination data, which has not yet been accessible again, are affected. A group called “Lapsus $” is held responsible.

This is reported by Reuters. It is about Brazil’s digital databases, which, among other things, store information about vaccinations and other health-related issues of the residents. Recently, several of the management systems were paralyzed by a cyber attack. Reuters reports that the hackers, who refer to themselves as the “Lapsus $ group,” posted a message on the State Department of Health’s website claiming that all internal data had been copied and deleted. They asked the Ministry of Health to contact them if they want their data back, indicating a possible ransomware attack.

The Brazilian Ministry of Health issued a statement on the matter:

“The Ministry of Health reports that there was an incident in the early hours of Friday that temporarily affected some of its systems … which are currently unavailable,” it said in a statement. The relevant authorities said they are investigating the attack.

Working On Restore

Much information is not yet available about the attack, the extent and the effects are still unknown. The Ministry of Health said it was working to restore its systems. At a press conference, Deputy Health Minister Rodrigo Cruz said that access to vaccination records had not been restored on Friday evening. Cruz said it was too early to say if the data was lost.

The Brazilian government actually wanted to impose a five-day quarantine on unvaccinated travelers, followed by a COVID-19 test starting today. This has to be postponed due to the hacking of the database – so far it has been said that the new measures should come into effect at the end of the coming weeks.