The island-state local media released the shocking news on Friday, 20 Jul 2018, however, the data breach could have taken place much earlier as some cybersecurity experts traced the breach back to the beginning of the month, at 4 July 2018, which coincidently also known as Independent Day or the US National Day.

Hackers target the “soft belly” of healthcare system

Apparently, the hackers first infected the country’s largest group of healthcare institutions, SingHealth’s front desk with a malware between 27 June and 4 July 2018.

This unauthorised access was then detected on 4 July 2018 at one of SingHealth’s IT databases, then the system administrators undertaken a series of counter-measures to thwart the cyber-attack. According to local media, no further data theft were recorded after 4 July 2018 and later SingHealth made a police report on the 12 July 2018 upon confirming the cyber attack on its system.

It was noteworthy that the hackers had chosen a less secured route in attacking the country’s healthcare system networks rather than highly protected site such as government websites or defence departments.

A organised state Cyber-Attack or political shaming move?

The prized target of the cyber-attack seemed bend on in drawing out the medical information of the country’s top politicians, namely Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong and Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong.

Thus, the city-state’s authority viewed the cyberattack on the healthcare system as “deliberate, targeted and well-planned” cyberattack, bearing some trademark of state-sponsored hacking. 

For instance, the hacker continued its unauthorised access to the healthcare system even though its action had been detected, showing the confidence, resourcefulness and the capability of the hacker to get away unscathed.

If the cyber-attack is indeed a state-sponsored one, the local media pointed out that there is only a few countries of the world that are capable of such attacks.

Singapore: the Gibraltar of the East for cyber-security

As the investigation of the breaches continued to unfold, one thing is certain that the famed Smart Nation, or the pet project taken by Singapore had been cracked despite boosting a formidable Cyber Security Agency (CSA), touted as one of the bests in the region.

Thus, the aftermath of the data breach may have fallen short of its goals – be its political agendas or simply financial motives of selling confidential patients’ data. However, the attack had afflicted a bigger blow to the country’s aspiration in cyber-space domination.

As the saying goes, ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’, the Hackwarenews team truly hoped the island-nation will bounce from this setback and lived up to its name of ‘Gibraltar of the East’ in cyber-security.

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