An attacker has compromised Virginia medical data, deleted it, and posted a note that demanded $10 million to give it back.
An online thief compromised the network of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Department of Health Professions, allegedly stealing healthcare data on nearly 8.3 million patients, according to reports.
The network intruder left a message claiming to have taken 8.26 million patient medical records and almost 36 million prescriptions, according to the SecurityFix blog. While a screenshot of the ransom note was first posted by Wikileaks, the leaked-documents site is currently down.
The compromised site was used by pharmacists to track prescription drug use. It is hard to believe the note was anything more than a joke to catch people’s attention.
Wikipedia has a curious entry regarding Doc Holliday’s companion Big Nose Kate
During Kate’s first visit to Tombstone in July 1881, Cochise County Sheriff John Behan discovered that Doc and Kate had a drunken fight, and he offered Kate more alcohol in exchange for her testimony, implicating Doc. Holliday was arrested based on her testimony. But the next day, a sober Kate recanted her story, and Holliday was released from jail.
The source of this is missing. Nice anecdote, though.
Doc Holliday, despite his habits and scrapes as a lawman, managed to live somehow long enough to retire peacefully in Glenwood Springs, Colorado along Hanging Lake. His memorial indicates that his exact burial spot is unknown, but it specifies “He Died in Bed”. You’ll find it in the Linwood Cemetery.
Debt collectors are using cute chicks as bait on Facebook to track down and keep track of debtors. For some reason, someone at CBV collections decided to out the truth behind the online construct “Jenny Anderson,” that she was the tool of professional skiptracers, to all 658 of her “friends.”
The lesson here? Never trust a profile you find attractive. Just kidding. The lesson is to never use Facebook. Never turn on a computer?
The data analysis I have done shows a ramp upwards in the number of health care breach notifications, versus other sectors. In fact, it shows educational and health care industries have far more breaches that the industries more commonly discussed in the news such as retail and banking.
The campus learned of the breach in April, immediately removed from service the exposed databases to prevent any further attacks, and alerted campus police and the FBI. In all, more than 160,000 individuals will be alerted, including those who had their Social Security numbers accessed and others who may be at risk for identity theft.
I believe the health care breach notices will continue to rise, not least of all due to the new federal breach notification requirement in the HITECH act that goes into effect in September 2009.