Leading Australian non-profit health and aged care provider St. Vincent's Health had its IT system compromised days before Christmas, which resulted in the exfiltration of certain data, Healthcare IT News.
No further details regarding the accessed and stolen data have been provided amid the ongoing investigation but St. Vincent's Health emphasized that none of the operations across its 16 public and private hospitals and 20 aged care facilities across Australia have been impacted. Relevant authorities, including the Australian Cyber Security Centre, have already been informed regarding the data breach. Such an incident comes amid mounting cyberattacks against the Australian health sector since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of which has compromised SA Health's third-party digital patient pathway provider Personify Care in October. However, basic cybersecurity protocols against domain spoofing and email fraud continue to be absent in more than one-third of major hospitals across the country, a report from Proofpoint revealed.
