Premier: VsZP Faces Cyber-Attack, Health Care Not at Risk for Now

       Bratislava, January 24 (TASR) - Another massive cyber-attack is underway against Slovakia, targeting state-owned health insurer VsZP, Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD) and Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) told a press briefing on Friday, adding that it was detected on Friday around noon and is still ongoing as well as that it is currently being successfully resisted.
        "The attack consisted in a huge number of attempts to obtain sensitive information from the VsZP information sources, which concerned all personal data and, most importantly, related to all diagnoses, including already prepared or already performed procedures that the patient had undergone," said the prime minister. If the attack is successful, he said, it will disable health-care provision in Slovakia.
        Sasko assured that for the time being there is no threat to the provision of any health care or services managed by the VsZP, also informing that both the VsZP and National Health Information Centre (NCZI) are currently in a crisis mode and constantly under control. "In the same way, I've issued instructions to all subordinate institutions and bodies of the Health Ministry, that is, especially to state hospitals," added Sasko.

The premier described Friday's cyber-attack against state-owned health insurance company VsZP as part of a textbook model example of "how disobedient governments that have a different view on some things are wiped out".
According to Fico, this model is being implemented in Slovakia by representatives of the opposition, foreign-funded NGOs, a large part of the Slovak anti-government media, and instructors from abroad who are in Slovakia. At the same time, he announced that the expulsion of these instructors is being prepared. Fico claims that the recent cyber-attack against the information system of the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Office was no accident either.
The prime minister said this week that there is a group of experts in Slovakia that was involved in "the events in Georgia" as well as in the Ukrainian Maidan. The group, he said, is being closely monitored. After the meeting of the Slovak Security Council on Thursday (January 23), Fico drew attention to the existence of a structure that wants to abuse the rallies to escalate tensions. He spoke of fears of a possible attempt to organise a coup in Slovakia.

After a cyber-attack against the systems of state-owned health insurance company VsZP, the data of the insured are safe, there was no leak and the health-care provision is not at risk, TASR was told by the VsZP communications department on Friday.
        "The VsZP is aware of the importance of processing and storing data on the health status of insured persons, therefore it pays maximum attention to the protection of personal data and takes measures to strengthen cyber-security," said the health insurer.
        The institution claims it has been monitoring the negative trend of cyber-attacks and has taken a set of security measures, which is also why it was able to resist an attack of this scale.