Malicious hackers have compromised personal data on more than 515,000 ‘highly vulnerable’ people. Red Cross pleads with attackers not to sell and leak any of this data, as these people have suffered enough.
“An attack on the data of missing people makes the anguish and suffering for families even more difficult to endure. We are all appalled and perplexed that this humanitarian information would be targeted and compromised,” said Robert Mardini, ICRC’s (The International Committee of the Red Cross) director-general.
“This cyber-attack puts vulnerable people, those already in need of humanitarian services, at further risk.”​​
The data originated from at least 60 Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies worldwide. People whose data has been compromised are ‘highly vulnerable,’ including those separated from their families due to conflict, migration, disaster, missing persons and their families, and people in detention.
ICRC has no immediate indications of who carried out this cyber-attack, which targeted an external company in Switzerland the ICRC contracts to store data.
“While we don’t know who is responsible for this attack or why they carried it out, we do have this appeal to make to them,” said Robert Mardini, The ICRC’s director-general.
“Your actions could potentially cause yet more harm and pain to those who have already endured untold suffering. The real people, the real families behind the information you now have, are among the world’s least powerful. Please do the right thing. Do not share, sell, leak, or otherwise use this data.”
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