Hackers Steal, Encrypt Health Records and Hold Data for Ransom | Hacker News Reader

Hackers Steal, Encrypt Health Records and Hold Data for Ransom

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36 pointsmillerski15014 comments

It’s unclear whether the Illinois surgical center’s records were backed up (...). The organization declined to comment.

This is where they get a huge lawsuit so they learn that they can't hire incompetents to handle their systems, right?

Maybe maybe not.

But I can also see a scenario whereby they were backed up, but they are also attempting to catch the culprits by pretending they have no backups.

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

Sounds a little strange to be honest. Using encryption shows sophistication? My mum probably can figure out how to use an encrypted zip file. Using encryption is generally quite easy. Breaking it will show much more sophistication.

Depends on what kind of encryption they are using. If they have implemented public/private encryption, where the virus only have the public key, then yes it would indicate some form of sophistication.

Yeah, but it's easy to phone home once for a password and then toss it out when finished.

I'm assuming everything because the story is so vague. I'm thinking an employee accidentally opened a malware executable with ransom-ware and suddenly it's an elaborate personalized hack in the press.

That's also my conclusion. Ransomware is not exactly unheard of in the malware space, and why would hackers specifically target them when there are bigger fish to fry?

Backup. Encrypt your backups. Store copies of the keys somewhere safe. Test recovery from backups regularly.

Short on important details. Specifically, what was the backup procedure and frequency? Was the backup routine affected for some time prior to the encryption and made to look like it was working but wasn't or was the backup policy lax or nonexistent?

This article is light on detail, and heavy on FUD. It seems to me that the author is (just doing his job) making a story out of something relatively small and insignificant, while promoting fear of electronic medical records and health information exchange.

Do we need to be careful about security? Yes, but we need to get over this fear of efficiency in healthcare.

Seems this would make an interesting use case for bitcoins.

It would make a very interesting use case for Bitcoins. Why is it that so many of the possible uses for them make it seem like the world would be a better place without them?

This is right out of Reamde

Off-topic, but is that worth reading? The plot synopsis didn't look very visionary like I'd expect from Stephenson...

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