SingHealth warns of new phone scam after major cyberattack
In its latest warning about scams that have emerged after the recent major cyberattack on its database, SingHealth warned patients on Monday (23 July) to report to the police if they received phone calls from impersonators who ask for personal or financial information.
“Please note that SingHealth will notify patients by SMS or letter only. We will not call you unless you have called us asking for a call back,” said the healthcare group on its Facebook page.
SingHealth also advised patients who have received fraudulent calls to report them to the police anti-scam helpline at 1800-7226688.
Last Friday afternoon, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) jointly announced information on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s outpatient dispense medicines, as well as personal particulars of about 1.5 million patients, were stolen from SingHealth’s database in a “deliberate and well-planned cyberattack”.
“The attackers specifically and repeatedly targeted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s personal particulars and information on his outpatient dispensed medicines,” the authorities added in their joint statement.
The data taken included name, NRIC number, address, gender, race and date of birth. Information on the outpatient dispensed medicines of about 160,000 of these patients were also copied.
Later on the same day, SingHealth posted on Facebook to debunk the contents of an SMS that had been circulating, which falsely stated that patients’ phone numbers and financial details such as credit card information had been accessed in the cyberattack. The SMS also claimed that medical records were accessed.
Police investigations into the cyberattack are ongoing.
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1.5M patients’ data, including PM Lee Hsien Loong’s, stolen in major cyberattack
