Brazil's health ministry website hacked, vaccination information stolen and deleted

Brazil's health ministry says its website has been hacked, taking down several systems, including one with information about the national immunisation program and another used to issue digital vaccination certificates.

Key points:

• The alleged hackers call themselves Lapsus$ Group
• Deputy Health Minister Rodrigo Cruz says it is too early to say if the data can be recovered
• Quarantine requirements for unvaccinated travellers have been postponed

The government put off for a week implementing new health requirements for travellers arriving in Brazil due to the attack.

"The health ministry reports that in the early hours of Friday it suffered an incident that temporarily compromised some of its systems … which are currently unavailable," it said in a statement on Friday. 

Police said they were investigating the attack.

The alleged hackers, calling themselves Lapsus$ Group posted a message on the website saying that internal data had been copied and deleted.

"Contact us if you want the data back," it said, in an apparent ransomware attack.