Women's stolen details “will not be published” by Nova hackers

Hackers who stole the personal details of hundreds of thousands of Dutch people held by Clinical Diagnostics laboratory have taken back their threat to publish more victim data, reports NOS .

In a message online it told the victims – mostly women who had undergone smear tests – that the first set of data put online had been deleted and that none would follow.

“The loss of credibility is the punishment we directed at the company,” said a message captured in a screenshot by Dutch media.

The hacker group Nova did, however, leak the data of around 53,000 people including addresses and social security numbers – although this has now been deleted.

On Friday, the Dutch health inspectorate IGJ announced that it had started an official investigation into security at the lab. The Dutch data protection authority AP has also launched an investigation.