NSW Health cyber breach declared a 'major incident' as the police Cybercrime Squad investigates

A cyber breach at NSW Health has been declared a major incident and is being investigated by NSW Police's Cybercrime Squad, authorities said on Wednesday 4 November. This report draws on ABC News, the Sydney Morning Herald and AAP (in copy published by SBS News). ## The investigation The State Crime Command's Cybercrime Squad was alerted to an alleged data breach at NSW Health at about 1pm on Friday 30 October, and detectives are investigating under Strike Force Civic, working with NSW Health and Cyber Security NSW, NSW Police said, ABC News and AAP report. Cyber Security NSW said the breach affected an isolated server within NSW Health and "has been declared a major incident". "No patient data has been impacted at this time nor is any patient data currently at risk from this limited cyber breach," a spokesperson said. NSW Health referred media inquiries to police, ABC News reports. Health Minister Ryan Park said he had been advised that no patient data had been compromised and no risk to clinical services had been identified, but that it was a live investigation and "things can and may, and often do in this type of incident, change", the Herald reports. He said police had wanted to decide when the breach was made public. ## The hacker's claim A user on a dark web forum claimed to have taken about 100,000 sensitive documents, dating from 2020, from NSW Health systems through a misconfigured subdomain, the Herald reports. The claim has not been verified; a threat intelligence platform that shared it said it was pending verification, the Herald reports.