On October 23, the Personal Data Protection Commission of Singapore issued three undertakings with the follow statement:
The new Undertakings reveals breaches stemming from various ransomware attacks due to the insufficient security IT measures implemented, affecting the personal data of over 690,000 individuals.
In response, the affected organisations are to implement remediation plans to rectify the immediate breach and address any systemic shortcomings to ensure compliance with the PDPA on a continual basis, such as:
- Enforce a stricter password policy requiring strong and unique passwords for all accounts
- Implementing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
- Engaging a DPE service provider to implement basic data protection and cybersecurity measures
- Conduct training sessions for employees to raise their awareness on data protection and cybersecurity best practices
The PDPC has accepted these undertakings having considered the number of affected individuals, the types of personal data involved and the impact of the Incident.
None of the incidents have previously been noted on DataBreaches.net and none of them appear to have been claimed by any of the ransomware groups routinely reviewed by DataBreaches. The largest of the three incidents was the Orchid Hotel incident, in which the personal data included the name, NRIC, date of birth, email address, telephone number, scanned copy of passport and credit card information (last 4 digits) of 680,000 individuals was encrypted.
Read the Commission’s explanation of each of the incidents to learn how the attackers gained access in each case and what steps the entities have taken in response: