The company’s investigation is ongoing, it said.
“We are working to identify any personal information that may have been accessed by an unauthorised third party.”
Customers will be contacted about necessary next steps once the process is complete and the facts have been verified, MediMap said.
“We want to reiterate that while some resident and patient data may have been accessed, residents and patients will continue to receive the same level of care while the MediMap system remains offline.”
MediMap’s priority is to work with customers to restore the platform “as quickly and safely as possible”.
The company thanked providers and their staff “for their professionalism and commitment in ensuring continuity of care”.
Cyber breach
Earlier today the director of MediMap said the portal was hacked by a person who stole login credentials of a legitimate user to create havoc in the system.
The compromised health portal’s director Geoffrey Sayer told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking the company was “responding quite well” after the hack, which led to some live patients being labelled as “dead” and names being replaced with those of politicians and Charlie Kirk.
MediMap is used widely across New Zealand in the aged care, disability, hospice and community health sectors.
Sayer said the company discovered “an incident” about 1.30pm on Sunday and shut the system down for precaution and “containment”.
The company did not know who was responsible, he said, but it did not appear to be a cyber attack – meaning someone using brute force to hack into a system through a software vulnerability.
“This is a case of someone stealing credentials and using those credentials of a legitimate user of MediMap to cause this harm.”
Health New Zealand’s response
Health New Zealand’s Darren Douglass said people needed and deserved confidence that their private and sensitive health information was secure.
“Protecting patient data is a priority across the health system,” he said.
“Health NZ supports MediMap’s decision to seek a court injunction to help protect the information of any impacted individuals.
“As a private company, MediMap is solely responsible for ensuring the security of that platform.”
Douglass said Health NZ has sought assurances from MediMap over the steps it is taking to manage this incident and minimise potential impacts.
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