A recently revealed investigation has disclosed that millions of Ontario residents’ medical information was leaked after the Canadian laboratory service LifeLabs was hacked.
According to the now-available 2020 report (by Information Privacy Commissioners in Ontario and British Columbia), LifeLabs suffered a major cyber attack in 2019, when ransomers held crucial patient-related data hostage for a brief period.
After the initial ransom was paid, the hackers returned the stolen data to LifeLabs, which was revealed to contain the personal medical information of 16-million Canadians.
At the time of the report, LifeLabs stated there was no evidence implying that any third party had abused the data during the ransom period.
Core numbers then revealed that out of the 16-million compromised patients, over 7-million were located in Ontario.
When confronted with the reality of the stolen data, LifeLabs noted that most of the compromised information was not overtly sensitive, indicating that a little …