The Infinite Brief

He explained that since the stolen information is usually “basic demographic data,” there is “no strong commercial value.”

The Singhealth breach in question involved the theft of names, addresses, birth dates, genders and NRIC information of 1.5 million patients.

Experts are of the view that medical records “have increasingly become more valuable than financial data in recent years,” the TODAY newspaper reported.

“Companies can use it as a marketing material, to research and identify for example, what kind of illnesses and sickness is common in Singapore. If you’re a pharmaceutical company… you’ll know what to sell, and who to sell them to,” said Ali Fazeli, director of security consultancy and advisory at cyber-security firm Infinity Risk Control.