Data from COVID-19 patients in Brazil exposed

Serious security incident in Brazil where the incorrect upload of a file led to the exposure of strictly personal and sensitive information of millions of COVID-19 patients. President Jair Bolsonaro has also been involved in recent months suffering from the disease, as well as his family and other members of local politics.

Leak COVID-19 patients in Brazil: there is also Bolsonaro

According to the reconstruction of what happened, the responsibility seems to be attributed to an employee of the San Paolo hospital who, for reasons yet to be ascertained, uploaded a file with the credentials for login to two government databases on GitHub (E- SUS-VE and Sivep-Gripe). They contain names, surnames, residential addresses, identity documents and medical records. It is not difficult to imagine what the potential repercussions on the privacy of the innocent directly concerned are.

The analysis of the archives seems to include data both for those who have experienced mild symptoms after coming into contact with the coronavirus and for those who instead they were hospitalized. The offending file was promptly removed from the platform and the credentials changed, but it is not known if in the meantime anyone was able to access it to download the databases. The risks for patients are various: from identity theft to scams.

Yet another demonstration of how the level of attention of those who work in the field of healthcare must never fail. The sector has been increasingly hit in the last period by various types of attacks, starting with ransomware ones which in the worst case can concretely result in the death of patients.

Source: ZDNet