Thursday, February 18, 2016

"After computer hack, L.A. hospital pays $17,000 in bitcoin ransom to get back medical records"

Washington Post: Not too long ago, taking the nation’s wild, messy, unreliable system of medical records online seemed like a worthy goal.

“To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that, within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized,” President Obama said. “This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests.”

While the shift Obama and many others pushed may have improved care, electronic medical records led to quite the unique hostage situation in Los Angeles this week. There, a hospital fell prey to a cyberattack — and the hospital has escaped its plight by paying hackers a $17,000 ransom. (read more)   Via Instapundit

National Ransom 

10 comments:

AllenS said...

Not good. Expect to see more of this. Bitcoin? Is that shit worth anything?

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

when democrats promise "We will cut waste" - LAUGH.

AllenS said...

cutting waste = getting rid of virus protection

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Ransom demand tax.

bagoh20 said...

Scary stuff. I hope there is a hell.

rhhardin said...

Ransomware doesn't compromise encrypted data, it just encrypts it more. Paying the ransom undoes the second encryption so you can again decrypt your own data, which is secure if it was secure in the first place.

Of course you need to encrypt it in the first place.

Amartel said...

When Dems promise "we will keep your medical records private" just assume the opposite will happen. In fact, just assume assume the opposite in any case of an overreaching promise from the government. Just assume you'll have to do the job yourself.

virgil xenophon said...

Like nobody could see something like this coming??? The civilian world is NOTORIOUS for lax IT security.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

Imagine if the assholes decide to hold Hillary's server hostage! Who would pay the ransom? If she paid it herself, would we ever find out? I would bet that somehow taxpayers would foot the bill.

Isn't this a huge vulnerability for all of us? We absolutely depend on vulnerable data for everything now.

Imagine a hostage hack like this of data that would put hundreds of human intelligence sources at risk of death is released. We would need to pay whatever they wanted.