{"id":595888,"date":"2026-09-10T09:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T09:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/595888\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T09:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T09:02:13","slug":"health-minister-briefed-amid-fears-clinical-trial-files-stolen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/595888\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Minister briefed amid fears clinical trial files stolen"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Health Minister has been briefed after an organisation that runs clinical trial work for the sector was hit by a cyber incident. <\/p>\n

Health New Zealand said it was helping Zenith Technology, or ZenTech, respond to the incident. <\/p>\n

A police spokesperson said they have been made “aware of an incident”. “We are in the early stages of our investigation and are working alongside Health NZ.”<\/p>\n

‘Sample material purported to be company data has been published online’<\/p>\n

The Dunedin-based contract research organisation provided clinical trial and analytical laboratory services for the pharmaceutical industry. It worked with Health NZ and the wider health sector. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Zenith Technology confirmed to 1News in a statement that the company was currently responding to a cyber security incident affecting its operations.<\/p>\n

\"Zenith<\/p>\n

Zenith Technology in Dunedin. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

“As a precaution, certain systems have been taken offline while we work to ensure our IT environment is secure and the incident has been contained.<\/p>\n

“We are aware that some sample material purported to be company data has been published online. As a matter of priority, we have engaged independent cyber security experts to investigate the incident and assess the nature and extent of any impact.<\/p>\n

“We are working closely with relevant authorities and government agencies, including Health New Zealand.”<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said the company would “provide further updates as more information becomes available”.<\/p>\n

“As investigations continue, we are carefully assessing the available information to ensure that any updates we provide are accurate and reliable.”<\/p>\n

A Health NZ spokesperson said the agency learned of the incident after files attributed to ZenTech were identified online.<\/p>\n

\"Zenith<\/p>\n

Zenith Technology (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

“There is no impact on Health NZ digital systems, and hospitals and primary care providers are operating as normal.” <\/p>\n

According to Stuff, the cyber attack was believed to have occurred about a week ago, with large amounts of information, including sensitive health data, stolen. <\/p>\n

‘National incident response protocols’<\/p>\n

ZenTech has called in specialist cyber forensic support, Health NZ said. <\/p>\n

The government department said its priority was to “ensure the response is thorough, coordinated and based on verified information”.<\/p>\n

“The right agencies and specialist experts are involved, and the situation is being actively managed through established national incident response protocols.”<\/p>\n

“Health New Zealand will work with the impacted organisation and relevant agencies to ensure appropriate steps are taken to notify and support those affected.” <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Health Minister Simeon Brown said he had been briefed and was receiving regular updates. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Health Minister has been briefed after an organisation that runs clinical trial work for the sector was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,134,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-595888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}