Yesterday, I became aware of a breach involving HPTH UK. The breach had been posted on Pastebin by @LulzSecWiki, who headlined it as “HPTH UK Hospital Server Data Leak.” @LulzSecWiki also tweeted a link to the data dump. In a statement with the leaked data, @LulzSecWiki wrote:
Greetings friends, welcome to TheLulzBoat. The the world’s leader in high-quality entertainment at your expense. This leak is simply for the lulz…. Wait! All of our leaks are for the lulz! Anyway, this leak is from a hospital server. Where from you ask? Our grand ole homeland; the UK! This release contains 1106 user details including: Name, Email, Address, Telephone, Medical Report, & much more. It also contains 450 cracked Email & Passwords from the database. Enjoy!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJGRlm3alLY)
@LulzSecWiki was wrong. This was not a hospital server. HPTH is a small charity and a voluntary patient support organisation for a rare medical condition called hypoparathyroidism (HPTH).
The paste included 581 entries, each containing first and last name, username, e-mail and postal address, telephone number, a description of diagnoses or medical problems, the name and address of the hospital where the individual was treated, and the date they registered with the organization. There was also a list of 343 e-mail addresses with their associated passwords in plain text associated usernames (see CORRECTION below).
I am not reproducing any of the leaked data here, even in redacted form, and withheld publication of this breach until the paste was removed from Pastebin.
Consistent with my concern about medical information breaches, I immediately e-mailed HPTH yesterday, and within short order, received replies thanking me and informing me that a security firm had already alerted them to the breach with advice as to what to do.
HPTH UK moved quickly to address the breach, and I received the following statement from them:
Monday, 8 April 2013 – On Sunday 7 April we were alerted by an information security professional at Secarma that our website security had been breached by LulzSec and that our membership registration list had been hacked into and the information leaked on Pastebin. LulzSecWiki announced on Twitter that it had hacked a hospital server, which was not the case, and told its readers to “enjoy!”
We informed the UK fraud police immediately and asked Pastebin to remove the data dump as soon as we were notified. We have also contacted our website’s host to tell them of the breach so that they can assist the police in their enquiries. The data have now been removed. We have written to our members, and have taken steps to improve the security of the website.
Liz Glenister, Executive Director of HPTH UK, says: “I am shocked and appalled that LulzZec published this information on line and even boasted about it. I am immensely grateful to Secarma for alerting us so swiftly and for their support in helping us to address matters and to our webmaster and other volunteers who worked through Sunday.”
Kudos to Secarma for alerting HPTH UK and kudos to HPTH UK for their quick response and for quickly notifying their members.
Like Ms Glenister, I am appalled that @LulzSecWiki thinks this is great fun to expose people’s medical challenges and personal details. That the hacker didn’t even seem to know the difference between a hospital server and a not-for-profit support organization speaks to the hacker’s intelligence. But that the hacker would do this to people dealing with medical problems “for the lulz” speaks even more loudly about ethics and character.
That’s a lot of really bad karma @LulzSecWiki just brought down a himself or herself.
Correction: Subsequent to publication, HPTH informs PHIprivacy.net that despite what @LulzSecWiki wrote, those were not passwords exposed in the paste but rather, usernames. HPTH states, “No passwords were leaked although we have nevertheless recommended to everyone that they change their passwords.”