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You are here: News > News > $10 million in exchange for stolen medical records in Virginia
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| » 05 May 2009 |
| $10 million in exchange for stolen medical records in Virginia |
| Nearly 8.3 million records of patients in Virgina were filched, and the ransom is no less than $10 million. The data were embezzled from a website that traces prescription drug abuse. The hackers posted a note in Wikileaks, which said, "I have your shit!". It continued, "In *my* possession, right now, are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too." They also threatened that if officials would not make a response within seven days, the stolen information would be sold to the highest bidder. It is difficult to validate the hostage, especially because a federal-run website is involved. It is also not too easy to erase both the original data and its corresponding backup (which is most likely found off-site). A Virginia Department of Health Professions representative informed the Security Fix blog that its website was put down since they found out on April 30 that there was a security breach. She did not discuss whether important information was indeed erased or pilfered. This event is the newest reminder that medical registers in electronic form are much easier to run away with compared to traditional paper counterparts. Last November, pharmacy prescription processor Express Scripts put up a bounty of $1 million in exchange for leads to the blackmailers who blackmailed that they would publish stolen details of millions of patients. This story was initially reported at the Security Fix blog (run by Brian Krebs). |
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