Cyber criminals targeting hospitals

CEBU, Philippines — The healthcare industry is warned of a possible cyber attack, as hackers are now looking at medical records as more valuable than a simple credit card.

“This is because a hospital generally requires a patient’s personal and financial credentials before a check-up or an admission,” warned Seongsu Park, security researcher at Kaspersky.

“Based on the indications and patterns we have seen and are still seeing on the dark web, the main purpose of the individuals behind these hacking groups is to sell the medical information to another crime group or to any individual who aims to access confidential medical data. It is quite alarming that we are increasingly coming across such active advertisements, which can either mean this illegal practice has turned into a normal type of business or the demand for such attacks are becoming increasingly high,” added Park.

According to Park, the motives of the buyers can include calling scam, identity and monetary theft, as well as blackmailing and any derived crimes.

Such malicious actions are possible with the amount of records and confidential data hacking for hire groups can harvest illegally from the affected health institutions. When it comes to the possible customer profiles, the nature of the dark web being anonymous opens the possibility that it could be anyone – from a new hacker, to an enterprise, or even a nation-backed cyberespionage group.

The current threats posed against the healthcare sector show how more and more malicious actors are targeting the industry.

The hacking for hire groups have added healthcare sector to their portfolio of services on the dark web, proving that medical data continues to be among the hottest commodities online.

Kaspersky’s research revealed that the base price has gone so cheap, depending on the type of breach or goods an anonymous customer requires.

The dark web is made of anything that is not commonly indexed on the surface web. To be able to get into this hidden part of the web, a user should use a special software such as Tor. Tor stands for “the onion router” and is a method for anonymizing data.

Based on the research of the global cybersecurity company, hospital and healthcare infiltrations are among the newest services being offered by anonymous hacking groups, alongside targeted attacks and cyberespionage against specific countries as well as infections to gain energy and maritime information.

“With the healthcare sector a bit lagging in terms of their cybersecurity capabilities, we observe that hacking groups are now off to exploit this fact by adding medical information and hospital attacks to their services list publicly available on the dark web. Any organizations, individuals, and companies can be their potential customers since these cybercriminals are offering various services,” Park noted.

Park suggested healthcare industry to employ a more sophisticated cybersecurity infrastructure.

He also recommended to employ real-time and in-depth threat intelligence as well as holistic cybersecurity solutions into a medical organization’s IT infrastructure.