Greenbone Networks has released details of new research in to the security of the servers used by health providers across the world to store images of X-rays as well as CT, MRI and other medical scans.
Of the 2,300 medical image archive systems worldwide that Greenbone analysed between mid-July and early September 2019, 590 of them were freely accessible on the internet, together containing 24.3 million data records from patients located in 52 different countries.
Available data included patient names, dates of birth, dates of examination and some medical information about the reason for examination. For US patients (which make up 13.7 million of the compromised records), it also included Social Security numbers.
More than 737 million images were linked to this patient data, with approximately 400 million of these accessible or easily downloadable via the internet. In addition, 39 of these imaging servers allowed access to patient data via an unencrypted HTTP web viewer, without any level of protection.
Ouch…medical images and details of 24.3 million patients left exposed on the internet: https://t.co/1M2A3lTVvl #CyberSecurity
— OPAL IT (@Opal_IT_Ltd) September 17, 2019
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