Security breach at health labs resulted in deleted backup data

The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) had a security breach on Friday resulting in servers and data storage being inaccessible and some – including the backup data – being deleted.

The security breach also resulted in the NHLS’s website being down.

The NHLS is an entity that assists with communicable diseases, occupational health and cancer surveillance in addition to providing diagnostic pathology services. It has laboratories in all nine provinces in the country.

CEO Prof Koleka Mlisana said the security breach affected the data centres caused by a ransomware virus.

“This has had an impact on our service delivery because we operate a networked laboratory system that relies significantly on information technology,” Mlisana said.

“As a result of this breach, most of our services have experienced temporary downtime. We are now investigating the entire scope of the effect, but we want you to know that we are prioritising the restoration of all vital services.”

The entity said an investigation was currently underway to determine the extent of the compromise.

“We recognise the magnitude of the situation and the concerns it may generate. Please know that our main focus is the security and integrity of our data and services,” Mlisana said.

She said the entity would manually process all the diagnostic samples received by our laboratories and results would be communicated telephonically if urgent.

The rest would be manually printed and distributed to healthcare facilities and clinicians.

Chabalalaj@sowetan.co.za