The Brazilian Ministry Of Health's Website Is Hit By A Ransomware Attack, Vaccination Data Is Robbed

JAKARTA - Brazil's Ministry of Health said its website on Friday, December 10 was attacked by a hacker attack that crippled several systems. This attack includes disabling a system that contains information about the national immunization or vaccination program and other data that will be used to issue digital vaccination certificates.

The Brazilian government was forced to delay for a week implementing new health requirements for travelers arriving in Brazil because of the attack.

"The ministry of health reported that in the early hours of Friday, an incident occurred which temporarily disrupted some of its systems ... which are currently unavailable," it said in a statement as quoted by Reuters.

Police said they were investigating the attack. The alleged hackers, calling themselves Lapsus$ Group "posted a message on the website saying that internal data had been copied and deleted. "Contact us if you want the data back," he said, in a ransomware attack.

The message, which includes Telegram's email and contact info, was deleted on Friday afternoon, but the web page is still inactive. Meanwhile user data on the ConnectSUS app that provides vaccination certificates for Brazilians has disappeared.

Brazil's Health Ministry said it was working to restore its system. At a news conference, Deputy Health Minister, Rodrigo Cruz, said access to vaccination data was still not restored as of Friday evening. Cruz said it was too early to say whether the data had been lost completely.

Under the measures decided last Tuesday, after Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro, opposed the use of vaccine passports, unvaccinated travelers arriving in Brazil must be quarantined for five days and tested for COVID-19.

The requirement was due to begin on Saturday, December 11, but the government said it would be delayed for a week because vaccination data could not be accessed online after the attack.

COVID-19 tracking forms for arriving airline passengers are still available on the website of health regulator Anvisa, which was not targeted by the ransomware attack.