QIMR Berghofer can confirm that no clinical trial participant information was in the files accessed in a breach of the third-party file-sharing system Accellion.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has conducted a forensic audit and identified the files that were accessed by an unknown party on Christmas Day 2020.
The ACSC has confirmed that 278 files, or approximately 620MB of data, were accessed. Most of these were Mosquito and Arbovirus Research Committee documents, including manuscripts of previously published scientific papers.
Several internal Institute documents were also accessed, which consisted of routine reports and correspondence.
Two CVs were accessed. QIMR Berghofer has contacted the owners of these CVs and provided them with advice.
One clinical trial document was accessed. It contained four graphs of statistical data. It included no personal information or identifiable data of any kind, and did not identify the clinical trial it related to.
The Accellion system has been de-commissioned from use at QIMR Berghofer.
The Institute is continuing to work with the ACSC.
