Cyber expert urges against ‘panic’ over NHS data leak

Mr Martin, who left the role in 2020 and is now a professor at the University of Oxford, said: “It’s a very difficult situation but experience from the rest of the world suggests that even when this data is dumped on the dark web, relatively little direct harm occurs.

“A good example is Australia, where over a third of the population’s full medical records were leaked onto the dark web.”

Mr Martin said a concerted government-led effort minimised the impact of the Australian leak.

“Police and other authorities were clear that there’d be consequences if there was any sort of extortion,” said Mr Martin.

“Although it’s very unpleasant, the data just sort of sat there and there’s no evidence of any direct harm, even though nearly 10 million people’s full medical records were affected.

“People shouldn’t panic. There isn’t going to be a Google searchable database of people’s medical records or people’s bank details. That’s not the way this works.

“It is relatively rare, not unknown, but relatively rare for individuals to suffer direct sort of harm, embarrassment or extortion.”