UK Biobank back online soon, months after someone tried to sell 500k people’s data on Alibaba

UK Biobank says its Research Analysis Platform is now secure and will reopen to researchers in phases once health data controllers and central government approve the relaunch, The Register reports. The platform has been locked since an April attack in which data on all 500,000 volunteers was listed for sale on Alibaba; reopening conditions include manual checking of files researchers want to download, two-factor authentication after 15 minutes of inactivity, isolated browsing for interactive tools, and confirmation that researchers have deleted downloaded de-identified data.