Medical details of over 120 million Indian patients have been leaked and made freely available on the Internet, according to a recent report.

 Global Report on Medical Data Leak

• It is published by Greenbone Sustainable Resilience, a German cybersecurity firm.
• The first report was published in October 2019 in which Greenbone revealed a widespread data leak of a massive number of records, including images of CT scans, X-rays, MRIs and even pictures of the patients.
• The follow-up report, which was published, classifies countries in the “good”, “bad” and “ugly” categories based on the action taken by their governments after the first report was made public.
• India ranks second in the “ugly” category, after the U.S.

Highlights of the report

• As per the follow-up report, Maharashtra ranks the highest in terms of the number of data troves available online, with 3,08,451 troves offering access to 6,97,89,685 images.
• The next is Karnataka, with 1,82,865 data troves giving access to 1,37,31,001 images.
• The number of data troves containing this sensitive data went up by a significant number in the Indian context a month after the initial report was published.
• It is a notable fact for the systems located in India, that almost 100% of the studies (data troves) allow full access to related images stated the report.

What led to the leaks?

• Greenbone’s original report says the leak was facilitated by the fact that the Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) servers, where these details are stored.
• These servers are not secure and linked to the public Internet without any protection, making them easily accessible to malicious elements.

Impact of leaks

• The leak is worrying because the affected patients can include anyone from the common working man to politicians and celebrities.
• In image-driven fields like politics or entertainment, knowledge about certain ailments faced by people from these fields could deal a huge blow to their image.
• The other concern is of fake identities being created using the details, which can be misused in any possible number of ways.

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