Hacker copies, deletes vaccination data

BRASÍLIA: The Brazilian Ministry of Health's (MoH) websites were targeted by a severe ransomware attack, resulting in the loss of COVID-19 vaccination data for millions of Brazilian inhabitants.

The MoH's websites went down, including ConecteSUS, which records residents' progress through the public healthcare system and the COVID-19 digital vaccination certificate, which was accessible through the ConecteSUS app.

According to a comment left by the Lapsus$ Group, which had claimed responsibility for the incident, the MoH's networks were hacked, and 50 TB of data was extracted and then destroyed. "Contact us if you want the data back," the message added, along with the attackers' contact information.

The Brazilian Health Ministry had also acknowledged the attack. MoH further confirmed the loss of many systems, including information on the national immunisation programme and another that issued digital vaccination certificates.

Rodrigo Cruz, the Deputy Health Minister, claimed that it's too soon to determine if data can be recovered and quarantine procedures for unvaccinated travellers would be postponed.

Due to the incident, the government had postponed the implementation of additional health standards for visitors coming to Brazil.