We have not had one of these stories for a while but the doctors turned off the server and called the police when presented with the ransom note
. Everyone knows about back up systems today and this story kind of makes one wonder if the ransom note was serious or some what of a friendly notice as if they have back ups, then why pay a ransom? Also there were emails that were taken and the funny thing is here is that the hackers used encryption, so they want money to release the password. Remember a few years ago about the ransom demanded from Express Scripts?
Express Scripts offers $1 million award to nab extortionist in data breach case
In Virginia we had a hacker break in about a year ago as well.
Would Someone Give the Hacker 10 Million for Prescription Information In Virginia – We have already been for Sale for quite a while now..
You do wonder about hacking medical records as there’s more money made with going after banks and financial institutions, so why mess with medical records? BD
The Surgeons of Lake County, located in the affluent northern Illinois suburb of Libertyville, revealed last month that hackers had burrowed deeply into its computer network, infiltrating a server where e-mails and electronic medical records were stored.
But unlike many other data breaches, the hackers made no attempt to keep their presence a secret. In fact, they all but fired a flare to announce the break-in, taking the extreme step of encrypting their illicit haul and posting a digital ransom note demanding payment for the password.
The doctors turned the server off and notified the authorities, refusing to pay.
The attackers’ choice of tactics, particularly the use of encryption, indicates a level of sophistication and targeting that suggests they knew what they were doing, said Rick Kam, president of ID Experts, a Portland, Oregon-based company that makes data-breach prevention technology and specializes in health care.
Based on the number of practices moving to electronic health records, “many more” of these types of breaches should be expected, he wrote in an e-mail.
And in 2004, health care facilities came under fire for outsourcing their transcription chores when several California hospitals were blackmailed by their own workers in India and Pakistan.
http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-08-10-hackers-steal-encrypt-health-records-and-hold-data-for-ransom/
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