Lauren Marcus reports:
Cybercriminals who obtained sensitive data regarding patients’ personal health are using the material as blackmail following a crippling cyber attack perpetrated earlier this month against Maayanei HaYeshua Medical Center in Bnei Brak.
According to an Israel Hayom report, many prominent Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) politicians, including government ministers and MKs, as well as well-known rabbis and scholars, had sensitive data regarding their health stolen in the breach.
One of the targets of the blackmail, Minister of Health and Minister of Interior Moshe Arbel (Shas) made a public statement about a medical procedure he recently underwent after he was approached by the hackers.
Read more at World Israel News.
The attack is the work of the Ragnar_Locker ransomware team, a group that has been around since at least 2020. Ragnar Team has generally not attracted as much media attention as some other groups, and inspection of their leak site does not reveal any other medical entities as victims — or at least as victims who did not pay their ransom demands.
The attack on the hospital is not listed on Ragnar_Locker’s dark web leak site at this point, but that may simply indicate that the threat actors are still hoping to get paid. Reports that they are contacting individuals about their data and threatening to reveal it suggest that the group has taken a page from some other groups’ pressure tactics, as AlphV (BlackCat) has reportedly done that as have a group attacking plastic surgery clinics in the U.S.