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Rosemarin explained the primary risks are that the vaccines could be stolen, or damaged by getting warm. There are also risks of immunization program data being accessed and locked down by ransomware.
The risk is great, Rosemarin said. The impact of a successful cyberattack on the vaccination program would be huge, and the monetary value of such an attack would be very high. It makes that data “a honeypot.”
“The main threat is not that the data gets into the wrong hands. … It’s more the disruption of the activity that would bring the entire process to a standstill.”
With a program as large as the vaccination of an entire province, there are going to be many entry points for “social engineering” — the manipulation of people to give up access to systems, using tactics such as phishing, Rosemarin said. But he said it is possible to prepare in advance for an attack of that nature and to minimize the disruption.
The Ministry of Health did not respond to a request for comment.
The cyber risk is, of course, not unique to this province. Late last month, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security released a bulletin on the continued impact of COVID-19 on cyber threat activity. The threat of ransomware to health-care facilities increased during the pandemic, and multiple Canadian hospitals have been attacked in recent months, it found. Meanwhile, the distribution of vaccines will almost certainly face significant threats, according to the bulletin.
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