Singapore, July 20: Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is among the 1.5 million residents of the island nation whose data have been stolen in a fresh cyber attack, confirmed the government's health's ministry on Friday.

The ransomware was used to steal data in a "deliberate, targeted and well-planned" manner, said the statement issued by the Ministry. The database targeted by the hackers included medicinal data of patients who visited state-run clinics between May 2015 to July 4 this year.

The government claimed that PM Loong was the prime target of the cyber attack. The hacker had been targeting the data pertaining to his health and the medicines he consumed over the past few months, the health ministry claimed.

"It was not the work of casual hackers or criminal gangs. The attackers specifically and repeatedly targeted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s personal particulars and information on his outpatient dispensed medicines,” it said.

The ransomware attack in Singapore comes in the backdrop of heightened security mechanisms adopted by Europe and the West, considering the near-paralysis of hospitals in the United Kingdom following a ransomware attack in may last year.

The ransomware cryptoworm, known as WannaCry, jammed the functioning of machines maintained by the health ministry in England, causing an abrupt halt in the functioning of state hospitals and clinics. The attack was carried out across the world affecting 2,00,000 computers in over 150 countries.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 20, 2018 04:52 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).