The hackers claim to have stolen 500GB of medical data dating back to 2022. The 700,000 documents purportedly contained patient medical and personal data, including disease types and prescribed medication.
Last weekend, the hacker group involved in the attack – Malek Team – after attacking the hospital, began releasing documents that included the ones containing data from the Israel Defense Force (IDF) on their Telegram channel.
While the hackers did not disclose when exactly they attacked the hospital, a warning was released last week by the Israeli National Cyber Directorate regarding an incident affecting Ziv Medical Center's computer systems.
The warning read, “The incident has been identified and contained without disrupting or affecting various systems and the operation of the medical center.” Taking precautions, the hospital temporarily took down its email server and some of its computer systems.
The security team has conducted an investigation on the issue, however, findings have yet to be released as of yet to ascertain whether or not there was an information leak.
Israel’s newspaper The Jerusalem Post reported that this was not the first time Ziv Medical Center has fallen victim to a cyberattack. The hospital had suffered two other cyber incidents in four months. Local media outlets reported that Ziv's systems appeared to have leaked information, which was admitted by both the hospital and the Israeli privacy protection body.
Israeli officials have said that they are pursuing charges against those connected to the incident and have forbidden the use, transfer, or distribution of any information that has been disclosed.
Along with Israeli tech and media organizations, Malek Team also claimed responsibility for cyberattacks on other targets in Israel, such as Ono Academic College, which was previously targeted earlier in October.
In their ventures, the hackers have leaked several data pieces, including videos of university classes and admission interviews with students. Also, scans of victims’ passports and documents have also been released. However, the authenticity of this data has not been confirmed.