Sanofi: unauthorized access to a database; data of 730,000 healthcare professionals may have leaked

The Japanese arm of drugmaker Sanofi announced on 28 August 2024 that part of its database had been accessed by an outside party and that personal data may have leaked. An overseas consultant working under contract had, in breach of Sanofi's IT security policy, saved access IDs for the database on a personal laptop, which was infected with malware on 10 July. A third party accessed part of the database from 10 to 14 July. Affected are names, gender, birth dates, email addresses, institution names and addresses, positions, professions and departments of 733,820 healthcare professionals in Japan, and names of 1,390 employees (including temporary and contractor staff). Sanofi terminated the contract immediately, changed passwords and restricted access.