Thailand’s DES ministry has admitted that 16 million patient records from the Public Health Ministry have been hacked and an investigation is underway.

The ministry’s cyber department has been informed that the records, including patient registration numbers, full names, home addresses, phone numbers, their doctors’ names, names of the hospitals and medical records, have been compromised.

The department will check the cybersecurity system at the Public Health Ministry to see whether it is up to standard, as well as hunt down the hackers for prosecution, in accordance with the Computer Crime Act.

The website, through which the patients’ records were leaked, has been removed, which means the department will have to wait for more information from the Public Health Ministry about how the leak occurred and exactly how many people have been affected.

Technology expert Prinya Hom-anek explained that the system has loopholes, which allowed the hacking to occur, and the only way to prevent a repeat is to set up a password so that hackers cannot access the information.

Source: Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS)