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A cyber attack on the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) has delayed scientists and researchers to register trials.
The ANZCTR is a public online registry of clinical trials in Australia, New Zealand, and around the globe.
As first reported by Crikey, the ANZCTR website was taken offline on 28 February after the registry’s operator, Sydney University, revealed that a “cyber security incident” occurred on 24 February.
“There is no ongoing threat to university systems and no identifiable health data has been compromised. We do, however, recommend affected parties take immediate action by changing their passwords and remain alert to phishing attacks, in order to minimise the risk of any further harm,” said Sydney University CIO Sandie Matthews.
“Upon identifying this incident, the university acted swiftly to secure our systems, and the affected websites are currently inactive. There is no impact on university systems, and we are working to restore the websites as quickly as possible.”
While no health data was compromised, according to the investigation to date, those who received an email were told their contact information and password, among other details, had been exposed.
The outage has left cynical researchers and scientists stranded without the ability to proceed with their trials. For the purpose of transparency and unbiasedness, researchers register their trials with ANZCTR so that details of the trial can be made public. Details made public include the trials’ goals and the methods of achieving them.
ANZCTR then reports these details to the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP), an agency of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
While ANZCTR is not the only public registry available in Australia and New Zealand, it is the largest. Sydney University, for the time being, has recommended that researchers use an alternative registry.
There is currently no deadline for when ANZCTR operations will return to normal.
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