More Than Half Of Norway Citizens Private Data Stolen In Massive Data Breach

More than half of Norway's citizens sensitive data might have been exposed in a massive data breach that plunge their healthcare system on January 8, 2018.

The national healthcare security centre HelseCERT made the announcement that abnormal activity were dictated on computer systems in the regions.

According to NSM, Hospital Partner HF was notified by HelseaCERT (Norsk Helsenett) that were abnormal activities going-on on several computer systems in the region, the incident was then reported to the police.

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The data breach occurred in health region of South-East Norway, a region that comprises of ten counties serving about 2.9 million inhabitants...that figure accounts for 56% of the overall population of Norway which stands at 5.2 million. The South-East counties consists of Akershus, Ostfold, Oslo, Hedmark, Oppland, Buskerud, Vestfold, Telemark, aus-agder and Vest-Agder.

"We are in a phase where we try to get an overview. It's far too early to say how big the attack is. We are working to acquire knowledge of all aspects," Kjetil Nilsen, director of NortCERT, the National Security Authority (NSM) said.

"Everything indicates that it is an advanced player who has the tools and ability to perform such an attack. It can be advanced criminals. There is a wide range of possibilities."

Security experts and government representatives believe that the data breach could be a state sponsored attack on the Health sector so as to gather information on people in the government, military, intelligence personnel, politicians, and others.

"This is a serious matter that we take seriously. We have invested considerable resources to assist the health authorities and handle the situation. For the sake of incident management, we can not at this time discuss the attack further," Kjetil Nilsen said.

Norway's Ministry of Health and Care said in a statement that a number of measures were put in place to remove the threat, assuring that further measures will be implemented in the future.