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Vastamo Psychotherapy Center in Helsinki
Photo: Heikki Saukkomaa / AP
Confidential information from psychotherapy sessions of tens of thousands of patients has been stolen by hackers in Finland and some of it has been made public.
Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo called the act "shocking" on Monday.
The government met for an emergency meeting on Sunday.
At further meetings during the week, ways should be found to support the victims.
The data was stolen over a year ago.
Many patients reported being blackmailed by the hackers via email.
The authors asked those affected to transfer the equivalent of 200 euros in Bitcoin - in return, the criminals would not put the sensitive data on the Internet.
The police are investigating, among other things, for severe extortion.
Thousands of patients have already reported them.
According to police, data from patients of the private psychotherapy provider Vastaamo were stolen.
The company operates 25 therapy centers in Finland.
IT security experts told the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper that a ten gigabyte file was circulating on the Darknet.
It contains notes from therapy sessions of at least 2000 patients.
Boss apparently knew about the data leak
Vastaamo has admitted errors in a statement on its website.
Accordingly, the company is now aware of two cyber attacks.
Initially, there was only talk of a data leak in November 2018, now a second incident in March 2019 is also mentioned.
The competent Finnish supervisory authority announced an investigation.
The company Vastaamo itself announced in a statement on Monday evening that the head of the company had been sacked.
Internal investigations had shown that he already knew of the data leak in 2019, but did not inform the parent company or the board of directors.
The investigation into the matter is still ongoing.
However, no further security vulnerabilities were found for the period after March 2019.
Interior Minister Ohisalo said that in Finland help for mental health problems should be available without fear.
The Finnish authorities set up a website for victims of the cyberattack, advising those affected not to communicate with blackmailers.
According to a study published in 2018 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), almost one in five Finns suffers from mental illness - more than in any other European country.
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