Attacks on the healthcare sector is a global concern. Amitai Ziv writes:
News that a Knesset member recently underwent a medical procedure was leaked to the media and onto social networks within days. Given that most people would prefer their medical information remain private, the leak presumably caused great embarrassment to the MK and his family. But they were not alone in being victims in a new hacking phenomenon – medical records.
Barely a week passes without reports of a medical institution, insurer or database being hacked. The hackers are usually of the criminal sort, in other words, their motive is financial, not ideological, though they can be both.
Two weeks ago, the Israeli data security company MadSec identified a major attack by activists from Tunisia and Algeria on Israel. The hackers, according to MadSec, obtained the credit information of Israelis belonging to major health maintenance organizations, and tried (unsuccessfully) to attack one of Israel’s banks.
The hackers claimed to have achieved remote control over an HMO’s computer system – and posted a clip on YouTube to prove it. They also published screenshots of patient accounts.
Read more on Haaretz.
The article also includes reference to a lot of U.S. attacks.
If you’ve been living in the dark about the risks of attacks in the healthcare sector, be sure to read the entire article, including the section on old technology that is networked and that can give hackers inroads to databases with patient information.