Details from Medicare offered on auction site came from a ‘bad person doing a bad thing’, Senate inquiry hears

Medicare details sold on the darknet were not obtained through hacking but by a “bad person doing a bad thing from a legitimate channel,” a Senate inquiry has heard.

Guardian Australia revealed in July that Medicare card details were offered for sale on a darknet auction site and that the vendor, provided with a journalist’s name and date of birth, was able to produce the requested Medicare number for a fee of 0.0089 bitcoin, or US$22.

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RACGP has told a Senate inquiry layers of security will help prevent breaches such as the theft of Medicare numbers that were sold on the darknet

The breach of Medicare data that resulted in patient card numbers being sold on the darknet should not have any significant implications for the government rollout of My Health Record, says the peak body for general practitioners

My Health Record will involve patient’s health information being uploaded to an online database.

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Nigel Phair says response to patient information being sold on dark web means fewer people ‘will trust government with their health details’

The federal government’s response to a Medicare data breach that led to patient details being sold on the dark web was “disappointing, confusing and often contemptible,” according to a former detective who headed the Australian federal police’s investigations into high-tech crime.

Nigel Phair, now an adjunct professor at the University of Canberra’s Centre for Internet Safety, told a Senate inquiry the government’s response to data breach concerns meant “less and less people will trust the government with their health details”.

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