Healthcare Data Breaches on the Rise: How ZircoDATA and St Vincent’s Health Were Affected by Cyber Attacks

ZircoDATA, a Victoria-based company that provides secure document storage, information governance, digital conversion and destruction services to over 9,000 clients across Australia, including Monash Health, recently reported a data breach. The hack exposed some historical documents belonging to Monash Health, which included archived information from the family violence and sexual assault support units at Monash Medical Centre, the Queen Victoria Hospital and Southern Health.

The breach led to the exposure of some of Monash Health’s historical data relating to domestic violence victims. Despite this incident, Eugine Yafele, Monash Health’s chief executive stated that their systems have not been compromised or impacted by the cyber attack. He added that investigations are ongoing in collaboration with ZircoDATA and the National Office of Cyber Security has also been notified.

Black Basta ransomware gang has claimed responsibility for the hacking of ZircoDATA and has reportedly accessed financial documents, personal information and confidentiality deals totaling 395 gigabytes of data. The gang set a ransom deadline for the data breach. Meanwhile Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness, National Cyber Security Coordinator mentioned that ZircoDATA and other government entities are still working to identify impacted data and individuals affected by the breach.

In another incident before the new year, St Vincent’s Health reported a data breach by unknown hackers but confirmed that no sensitive data were compromised in the breach. This incident highlights how healthcare organizations continue to face cybersecurity threats and must remain vigilant to protect patient data and privacy.