Ransomware Gang Curi Three Million More Patient Data In California

As many as three million patient data are claimed to have been stolen by the ransomware gang. (photo: dock. pixelbay)

JAKARTA - A total of three million patient data were claimed to have been stolen by the ransomware gang in early December last year. Several California medical groups, the United States (US) have informed patients of this incident.

South California health care organizations, which include the Legal Medical Group, Lakeside Medical Organization, ADOC Medical Group, and Greater Covina Medical also warn patients where it is likely the ransomware gang has stolen a ton of their health and sensitive personal information.

"After extensive review, malware was detected on some of our servers, which threat actors used to access and extract data," wrote a notification posted on the website of the Legal Medical Group and submitted to the California Attorney General's office.

To restore access to the system and determine what data was affected, the four medical groups said they had hired third parties to help and work with security vendors.

The ransomware gang stole, including the patient's name, social security number, address, date of birth, diagnosis and treatment information, laboratory test results, prescription data, radiology reports, member numbers of the health program, and phone numbers.

And according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, which is investigating data base breaches, it affects 3,300,638 people.

While it is unclear who is responsible for cyber attacks, some ransomware gangs like to target health facilities because they think people will pay easily.

For information, at the end of January the FBI had successfully shut down Hive's ransomware network, taking control of the server and website of the notorious gang, as quoted by The Register, Monday, February 13.

The blocking was the culmination of a seven-month covert operation in which the FBI infiltrated the Hive network and used that access to provide decryption keys to more than 300 victims, saving $130 million equivalent to Rp1.9 trillion in ransomware payments. The FBI also shared another 1,000 decryption keys to Hive victims earlier.