‘Tis But a Flesh Wound: New Zealand’s Medical Data Problem
New Zealand’s health sector has been breached… again. MediMap, a medication management platform used across aged care, disability, hospice and community health, was hacked on Sunday, with patient records altered inside the system. Alive patients were marked as deceased. Others had their names changed to “Charlie Kirk.”
Enter the Black Knight and welcome to another edition of Pop Culture PR.
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur encounters a knight guarding a bridge who, repeatedly, refuses to acknowledge defeat. First arm CHOP! ‘Tis but a flesh wound. Second arm! just a scratch. When both legs join the pile he threatens to bite King Arthur’s kneecaps.
The Black Knight is not stupid or evil. He’s just incapable of admitting the severity of what’s happening to him – much like the state of New Zealand’s health sector. And our transgressions go back a long, long way. Who remembers the Waikato DHB back in 2021 (and yeah I’m looking at you old friend😉).
More recently, Manage My Health was hit on New Year’s Eve. Canopy Health was targeted in a cyber attack in July. Each time, a review is commissioned, the Minister expresses concern, and then everyone goes back to BAU.
Tis but a flesh wound! But one that’s left me wondering how many limbs are left.
The MediMap hack has Pythonian detail that the ManageMyHealth MMH breach lacked. The attackers didn’t just take data, they stayed to redecorate. Marking elderly hospice patients as deceased and renaming them after Charlie Kirk is not the behaviour of a sophisticated state actor. It’s a hacker pointing at the gap in the bridge and laughing. They’re the French castle guards hurling insults from the ramparts because their opponents are laughably inept.
The funny part is the gap between reality and the knight’s self-assessment. That is exactly what destroys public trust and license to operate. Usually it’s not the breach itself (in this case adding another log to the fire isn’t helping), but the response that signals nothing will fundamentally change.
PR ProTip
When a critical sector has been breached multiple times in under two months, the communications problem isn’t the breach. The problem is the pattern and that it creates an enduring story, one that needs constant management. More unfortunate still, every holding statement, every welcomed review, every expression of concern without structural change delivers the optics equivalent of another arm on the ground.
*At some point the public stops believing the knight can protect the bridge.* That’s a cybersecurity failure and a story about who we decided didn’t deserve proper protection. No press release or key message fixes that. The last bit of that famous scene lingers in my brain… as the Black Knight said while Arthur walked away, “Right, we’ll call it a draw.”
