Virginia Health Data Potentially Held Hostage

Source: Information Week

An extortion demand seeks $10 million to return more than 8 million patient records allegedly stolen from Virginia Department of Health Professions.

May 4, 2009 02:05 PM

An extortion demand posted on WikiLeaks seeks $10 million to return over 8 million patient records and 35 million prescriptions allegedly stolen from Virginia Department of Health Professions.

The note reads: "ATTENTION VIRGINIA I have your sh**! 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. Uhoh"

The note goes on to demand $10 million within seven days, presumably from the time the data was apparently seized on Thursday, April 30, in exchange for the key to decrypt the encrypted backup.
"If by the end of 7 days, you decide not to pony up, I'll go ahead and put this baby out on the market and accept the highest bid," the note says.

It's not immediately clear whether this note is genuine. The Virginia DHP hasn't responded to repeated calls and e-mail messages seeking comment.

However, a notice posted on the DHP Web site on Monday morning acknowledged that the site "is currently experiencing technical difficulties which affect computer and e-mail systems."

A spokesperson for the Virginia Attorney General's Office said the agency could neither confirm nor deny any knowledge of an extortion demand.


Read more: http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217201397

Err, back in the Internet.

for starters, a lot of those records aren't any good anymore (if they do in fact exist)...The ransom claims to have 8.2 million records, and the TOTAL population of the commonwealth is only 7.7 million...

and does the alleged e-terrorist *REALLY* think Virginia has $10 million in loose change just to give to him? in a year when our state budget shortfall is in the BILLIONS?

to realize that s/he could be tracked down quite easily if the authorities REALLY wanted to...

:boring:
rocktivity

K&R

Can I get a great big round of I told you so here?

All the new legislation about electronic medical records does is 1) allow a bunch of medical companies to make a killing selling all providers overpriced equipment to get them into compliance with the law and 2) allow companies that can hire computer hackers (i.e. every one of them) to steal confidential medical records and use them to create a database to help them in business.

Electronic records might as well be posted on a billboard. Nothing replaces the old fashioned pen and ink locked in a doctor's office. The worst that could happen there is it could be lost in a fire.

F.B.I.

they aren't going to get away with this

On the intertubes. I don't understand Obama on this.