Dylan A Mordaunt: NZ’s health data hack needs a proper diagnosis – and a transparent treatment plan

Two cyber hacks have highlighted the vulnerability of New Zealand’s digital health systems – and the vast volumes of patient data we rely on them to protect.

Following the hacking of Manage My Health – compromising the records of about 127,000 patients – and an earlier breach at Canopy Health, a concerned public is asking how this happened and who is to blame.

The most urgent question, however, is whether it can happen again.

Toby Murray: What is CrowdStrike Falcon and what does it do? Is my computer safe?

A massive IT outage is currently affecting computer systems worldwide. In Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, reports indicate computers at banks, media organisations, hospitals, transport services, shop checkouts, airports and more have all been impacted.

Today’s outage is unprecedented in its scale and severity. The technical term for what has happened to the affected computers is that they have been “bricked”. This word refers to those computers being rendered so useless by this outage that – at least for now – they may as well be bricks.

Alexander Gillespie: Out of the shadows

Why making NZ’s security threat assessment public for the first time is the right move

Today’s release of the threat assessment by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS) is the final piece in a defence and security puzzle that marks a genuine shift towards more open and public discussion of these crucial policy areas.