This appeared last week:
‘Pay up or we destroy your patients’ health records’: Cyber criminals hit hospitals
ELECTRONIC health records have become a prime target for cyber criminals seeking to steal people’s identities, a new report has warned.
April 27, 20172:13pm
CRIMINAL gangs are illegally accessing health records to steal people’s identity, a major new report on electronic data breaches reveals.
And cyber criminals have threatened to shut down busy hospitals by encrypting every patient’s electronic record so they can’t be accessed by doctors or nursing staff.
The cyberattacks create chaos when doctors can’t get hold of critical information in the middle of surgery and have brought every aspect of hospital operations to a halt.
Access to the medical records is only reinstated when the hospital agrees to pay a seven figure ransom.
The scams have come to light after global technology and communication company Verizon released its latest global data breach report, which included Australia.
This report finds healthcare is now the only industry where employees are the main culprits in these types of data breaches.
Fifteen per cent of the 42,000 data breaches recorded last year involved healthcare organisations, the report shows.
Health care is the only industry where insiders more likely to steal the data.
The revelation of the data breaches come as the Federal Government is preparing to automatically set up an electronic My Health record for every Australian unless individuals expressly take action to opt out of the system.
News Corp Australia revealed recently only 147 out of one million Australians already automatically given a My Health record has set up a PIN number to protect their health information.
The Verizon report says it’s usually employees of doctors, hospitals or health clinics who illegally access personal health records.
They can sell the information to criminal gangs or use it to bribe people who may have embarrassing health conditions.
Sometimes they just want to share the health secrets of famous people with friends and family such as finding out the name or sex of a celebrity’s newborn before it appears in the press.
They have also been caught spying on the health conditions of their own friends, the report reveals.
Aaron Sharp, a security solutions consultant at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, says health records are the perfect target for people who want to steal your identity because they list names and date of birth and often reference the names of relatives.
“If you stole this information you could open a bank account using that name or access the bank accounts of the person whose identity you stole and steal their money,” says Mr Sharp.
“Often people who steal the information on-sell it to criminal gangs,” he says.
Lots more here:
I have very little to add to the article. Clearly health information is very valuable to crooks and all those handling such information need to be aware of the nefarious ways such information can be used.’
A great contribution to public and profession education!
David.
No comments:
Post a Comment